Sins of the Mother
by Dajira
Summary: Prequel to Twist of Fate. Journey into the world of a young warrior whose life has been turned into a living hell by his own mother. Will he ever find salvation? Can he ever forgive his mother? *Revised*
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: Must we go through this? Oh, okay, but we most of us already knew that Dragonball Z and its many characters is owned by Akira Toriyama, Toei, and other people with more money than me. I only own the original characters, which really won't be that many.**

**Sins of the Mother**

**By: Dajira**

**Prologue**

* * *

Bulma hung up the phone, frowning. She had just called both Yamucha's house phone and cell phone for the umpteenth time each, and yet again he still didn't pick up on either. Yamucha had promised to treat her to lunch today at this new, trendy restaurant that had recently opened up in town, with the plan being that he would pick her up at noon. Well now it was almost one o' clock and her boyfriend still had yet to show up. It left her feeling very agitated.

A few possibilities as to why he was so late kept running through her mind. The main one that kept sticking, though, was that he was off somewhere chasing after another woman again and lost track of time. After all, his cheating ways was one of the reasons why their relationship had been so sporadic these last few years, and she knew how hard old habits could die. Nevertheless, after dying in the battle with the Saiyajin and being wished back to life, Yamucha had promised to be a more serious and responsible boyfriend, and for the most part had kept his word; Bulma had seen the improvement in him with her own eyes. So she was doing her best to ignore all the suspicions swirling around in her mind and give him the benefit of a doubt.

After more time had passed, Bulma growled impatiently in the back of her throat and checked her watch again. Then she decided to go wait for him outside. Shortly, she was making her way through the foyer and heading for the entrance door. Just as soon as she stepped outside the house, Bulma looked up and jumped back a bit in surprise with a tiny squeak. Someone was already standing out there, but it wasn't Yamucha. Actually, it was someone she had never seen before in her life.

Before her stood an extremely pretty young woman, with blonde hair that stopped to her shoulders in a razor-bob style. Her eyes were cat-tilted and the palest shade of blue she had ever seen on a person before; staring at them too long sent a tiny shiver through Bulma. The unknown woman was dressed in an old, tattered, gray dress with black drawstrings in the chest, and also barefooted. Her appearance wasn't what caught Bulma's attention the most, however; it was the baby she held in her arms- a boy to be more precise- wrapped in a white blanket. He had a head full of fine, bright red hair, with eyes that were a darker shade of blue than the woman's. The baby wasn't crying or anything, just staring up at her underneath a little scowl- one that looked very, very strikingly familiar to Bulma.

It was a long moment before Bulma found her voice again. "Um. Can I help you, miss?"

"Here, take this child!"

That was the only warning she got as the baby was thrust into her arms, giving her no other choice but hold onto him.

"H-Hey! What do you think you're doing!?" Bulma protested.

"His name is Koji. He is...Vegeta's son."

"W-WHAT!?" Bulma exclaimed in stupefaction, her blue eyes doubling. It was so shocking that her brain could almost be heard coming to a screeching halt. "V-V-Vegeta's...?"

The young mother ignored the flabbergasted older woman, staring down at her child with a regrettable expression. Briefly, she reached out to gently caress the side of his face. Then, with noticeable difficulty, she turned and was gone, breaking out into a run. That snapped Bulma out of her daze.

"Wait a second! Come back here!" she called, attempting to run after the mysterious woman and make her give a more full-drawn explanation for all of this. Bulma ran no more than three steps when she was forced to stop, gawping at the woman in amazement as she rose into the air and rocketed away in an incredible burst of speed. "What is...going on here...?"

Abruptly, Bulma was reminded that she had a baby in her arms when he started crying at the top of his lungs. Bulma looked panicked; while she was a beautiful genius before her time (as she often liked to describe herself as), dealing with babies was definitely unfamiliar territory for her. She tried thinking of ways to calm him down. The first thing Bulma tried was pleading and that didn't work; next she tried singing him a lullaby, though, that only served to make the baby cry louder. Bulma even tried to bribe him, which failed as well. Finally, she started making silly faces, and slowly, thankfully, the baby-Koji- stopped crying and started to laugh. Bulma let out an audible sigh of relief. When that scowl almost quickly returned to his features, Bulma now realized why she had thought it seemed so familiar earlier. That look alone cinched his mother's story.

"You really are that man's son...!" Bulma said, awed, smiling in spite of herself. "So your name is Koji, huh? Well, hello there, Koji-kun, my name is Bulma."

Koji giggled in response, and Bulma smiled even more. Now how could any offspring of Vegeta be so adorable? For that matter, how could any woman get the proud Prince of the Saiyajin to even make a baby with her? Who was she? _What_ was she that she had the ability to fly?

"I think this is going to be another one of those days," she groaned. As if understanding what she was saying, the baby grinned toothlessly up at her.

When a shadow passed over them all of a sudden, Bulma glanced up. Yamucha had finally made it, descending out of the air in that yellow sports aircar she had bought him a couple of years ago, touching down in front of her and Koji. Under normal circumstances, she would have been prepared to lambaste him soundly for arriving for their date so late and without calling her. Yet as Yamucha stepped out the car and jogged over, she thought she had never been so glad to see him, because right now she really needed to talk to someone.

"Bulma- I'm so sorry I'm late! I know you're mad at me, but my car cut off on me. Then I forgot my cell phone back at home and-" Yamucha trailed off in his explanation when he finally noticed the baby. "Cute kid. Whose is he?"

Bulma looked to Yamucha, then back to the baby.

"You're not going to believe this, but this is child of Vegeta..."

* * *

**To Be Continued**


	2. Meeting Mother

**Disclaimer: Must we go through this? Oh, okay, but we most of us already knew that Dragonball Z and its many characters is owned by Akira Toriyama, Toei, and other people with more money than me. I only own the original characters, which really won't be that many.**

**Chapter One: Meeting Mother**

* * *

Thirteen years had passed by since that fateful day when that strange woman had left Koji, the son of Vegeta, at Capsule Corp and flew off. A lot of things had happened since then. A lot of tragic, horrible things.

Only a year after Koji came, Son Goku had fallen ill to a mysterious heart virus with there seeming to be no medicine to cure it. At length, Goku passed away once more, and because he had died of natural causes this time, they couldn't use the Dragonballs to wish him back. While his death had been a great loss to his family and friends, Vegeta was one of the people affected by it the most. With the death of his rival, he no longer had the will to train or even fight anymore.

Unfortunately for the prince, he would have no choice but to find that will again a lot sooner than he might have felt like.

Six months after Goku's death, another menace had surfaced on the planet- one the remaining Z-Senshi had been completely unprepared to face. This new threat came in the form of a pair of twins- a young man and a young woman- of unimaginable strength and speed known as the Jinzouningen: Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou. What was most surprising to the Warriors about this murderous pair was that they looked nowhere near as horrible and dangerous as some of the villains they had faced up until then, but more like two ordinary Earth humans. In spite of their harmless appearances, everyone would find out that these two were much deadlier than any previous foe. Even the likes of Furiza and his father, King Cold paled in comparison to them.

The last of Earth's greatest warriors would inevitably confront these killers. Sadly, they were just no match for them, and one by one, Vegeta, Piccolo, Kuririn, Tienshinhan, Yamucha, and Chaozu had all fallen in battle against the evil duo. After those deaths, for a decade and three years plus the Jinzouningen had reigned supreme over the Earth, ravaging everyone and everything in their sights, reducing the population count from billions into a few hundreds. The world was truly their playground; day after a day was like an apocalyptic nightmare for the survivors. No one was safe from the wrath of the Jinzouningen.

Not man, woman, or even child.

No one.

All was not completely lost, however. While the outlook seemed hopelessly grim, there were still two final hopes for the planet; potentially the only thing that could stand up against the Jinzouningen: the sons of Son Goku and Vegeta.

* * *

There was a sound of fist connecting none-too-gently against flesh, and then a young boy went sprawling backwards across the already chewed-up earth.

"Come on, get up!" his opponent ordered.

Growling through gritted teeth, the youth pushed himself back up to his feet. This was just once more in the several other times he had been knocked down by his opponent, who was much older and much more experienced as a fighter than he was, only to stand again. There had been plenty of chances he could have given up, but the blood that flowed through him wouldn't allow it. Neither would his opponent.

"HYAAAAA!" he roared, launching himself at the other fighter, his fists and feet lashing out in a flurry. Each blow was adroitly blocked. Rearing up for another punch, the boy struck again, only to hit empty air as his opponent sidestepped him. He was then grabbed by the very same arm, and judo tossed to the ground.

"If that's your best, then you'll never beat_ Them_," his opponent taunted, crossing his arms. "They'd kill you before you could even throw the first punch!"

The boy's body stiffened at the insult. Turning himself over, he forced himself back up once more. His fists were clenched and his face etched in a mask of fierce resolve. With another battle cry, he rocketed back in with another barrage of blows, putting all he had behind every punch or kick. Ultimately, one of his fists managed to sneak through his opponent's seemingly unyielding defenses and slam into his stomach, knocking the air out of him as he doubled.

For a moment, the two stood frozen in that position. The older fighter then glanced down at the boy and smirked.

"Nice shot, Koji-san," Son Gohan praised.

Smirking as well, Koji looked up at him out the corner of his eye. "I am learning from the best, after all, Gohan-san."

Gohan and Koji then separated, leaping away from one another at a short distance, drawing back into fighting postures.

"I don't think I'm anywhere close to the best, but thanks for the sentiment," Gohan said with a half-laugh, sounding bashful. His expression immediately turned back serious. "Now let's see can you do that again!"

"Right!" Koji agreed, looking determined.

Gohan stared back at the young warrior. He wasn't exactly looking at him, but more at the expression on his face as it was so familiar. _*So like his father.* _Then aloud he said, "Begin!"

As Koji charged Gohan again, they remained completely oblivious to the audience of one observing them from the kitchen window of the once magnificent Capsule Corporation building. Years ago, while Koji was still just a baby and Gohan still a child himself, the Jinzouningen had attacked the West Capital. In spite of the damages it had suffered, it was one of the few buildings in town still standing, as most of the city had been levelled during the assault. With the horrible chance of drawing back the Cyborgs, no one had ever bothered to repair the city.

Bulma took a pull of the cigarette she was smoking, exhaling the smoke back out a moment later. She barely paid attention to the music playing from the radio in the background, too absorbed in what was happening outside in the yard. Every time she saw Gohan, it never failed to amaze her that he had grown into the same young man who was training her adopted son right now. It seemed just like yesterday he was still that shy, polite kid Goku had first introduced to her and the rest of the gang years ago when they decided to have a reunion on Master Roshi's island. Regrettably, due to the threat of the Cyborgs, Gohan had been forced to grow up a lot quicker than he was supposed to. And right before her eyes, the same thing was happening to Koji.

She was now looking at Koji in particular. He'd only been a infant when his mother had left him with her, but now he was a slightly lanky, slightly muscular thirteen-year-old. Bulma frowned.

Bulma had been against the idea of her son trying to fight the Jinzouningen and she still was. How could he do anything when his father, as a Super Saiyajin, was easily defeated? Or when Gohan, who was also a Super Saiyajin, still couldn't find a way to beat them? Meanwhile, Koji still couldn't even transform! Nevertheless, Gohan had patiently explained to her once that Koji needed this. The two of them were the only ones who had even a glimmer of a chance against this seemingly indestructible enemy. Gohan had been hit with the cold truth that he couldn't beat those mechanical demons on his own, and that is why he had begun training Koji. With Vegeta's Saiyajin blood flowing through him, Gohan had been hoping to help him transform into a Super Saiyajin so the field could be even.

Bulma had been forced to admit that Gohan made some good points: he and Koji were their last light of hope against the Jinzouningen. More importantly, Koji really did need this. With his father gone, Koji needed to learn about his Saiyajin heritage some way, and in his own right, Gohan was doing just that. Her mouth curled upward, as she could just imagine Vegeta's reaction at the idea of his rival's son training his own.

Then again, she thought as she put out her cigarette, maybe Vegeta wouldn't care at all. She still remembered Vegeta's reaction when she first showed him his son...

_Vegeta stormed into Capsule Corp, his face thunderous. He had been in the middle of training when Bulma had interrupted him on the vid screen, telling him to come to the living room because she had something important to show him. Well, for her sake whatever she had to show him better be as important as she claim it to be. When he finally reached the living room, he found Bulma and Yamucha, and right away he noticed that Bulma was holding something. He glared at the two._

_"Well? I'm here," he snapped. "So what's so damn important?"_

_Bulma and Yamucha exchanged grim looks, then Bulma moved forward with whatever she was carrying. Looking more closely, he realized what she was carrying was a baby. Bulma drew up in front of him. Vegeta looked from Bulma to the baby, then back at Bulma again. He looked even more annoyed._

_"What the hell is this!" he demanded._

_"This is your son," Bulma replied._

_"What?" Vegeta bellowed, drawing back in surprise. He scowled furiously at Bulma. "Woman, is this some kind of sick joke?"_

_"Of course not!" Bulma yelled back, her notorious temper starting to rise at him thinking that she would joke about something like this._

_At the sound of their raised voices, the baby started to cry. Bulma quickly did her best to calm him down._

_"Look, Vegeta, Bulma's not lying about this," Yamucha said, coming to Bulma's defense. "The mother just came here and left the kid here not too long ago."_

_Vegeta still didn't look convinced in the least. "What did this so-called woman look like?"_

_Bulma, after finally getting Koji under control, told him. There was a brief widening in Vegeta's eyes, then they narrowed. He looked back down at the baby, studying him more closely. In the next moment, Vegeta looked as if he'd just seen something disturbing. Then, without so much as another word, he whirled and stomped out of the room._

After laying eyes on his son for the first time, Vegeta had never looked at him again while he had been still alive, basically forcing her to care for Koji. While she had been rightfully annoyed by it at first, she had thought Koji had been so cute and precious that she just couldn't turn her back on him, and so she had raised him as her own all these years; of course, her parents and Yamucha had helped her out as well.

Bulma's heart wrenched painfully at the thought of her parents and Yamucha. Her parents had been killed on the day the Jinzouningen had attacked the city, after a portion of the ceiling had collapsed on the two of them. And Yamucha...Yamucha had gotten fed up with the Cyborgs having their way. She had told him that it would be suicide, but he wouldn't listen and went off to face them, anyway. The next time she saw him...he was lying motionlessly on the ground, a hole torn into his chest, his face twisted in a final expression of agony; to this day that look haunted her. Vegeta, Piccolo, Kuririn, Tienshinhan, Chaozu, and even Yajirobe had all been found in similar fashions as well. With Piccolo dead, due to their connection, Kami had died as well, leaving her unable to even attempt a search for the Dragonballs and wish them all back.

There seemed to be no hope at all against their deadly foes.

And poor Koji, he would never get to know his father...or even his mother. Fury swelled up inside Bulma at the thought of his birth mother. No, it had nothing to do with her abandoning Koji when he was a baby, though that's not to say she still didn't resent her for it. Her hatred for the woman ran much deeper. It had been a terrible shock to her the day she had discovered that Koji's real mother was actually one of those horrible Jinzouningen who were destroying all life on Earth. That day she had seen her on TV attacking a city with the other cyborg, she had recognized the woman almost at once while she was flying by firing ki blasts at the helpless citizens. She could never forget that face, especially those eyes...those cold, lifeless eyes.

At the young age of 5, Koji had known that Bulma wasn't his real mother. But when he had asked whatever happened to her, she told him had been killed by the Jinzouningen just like his father. She just couldn't tell him the truth. As emotional as he could be, she knew it would crush Koji if ever found out, and that he would be equally mad with her for lying to him for all these years. Even though she was only doing it to protect him. The only ones that did know besides Bulma had been Yamucha, her parents, and Gohan as well. And Vegeta...she was sure he knew as well. How could he not?

Bulma's musing was interrupted, when a broadcast on the radio caught her attention. Quickly putting out her cigarette in the ashtray, she then ran over to the radio and turned the volume up.

"I repeat! The Jinzouningen are assaulting Nicky Town!" the man on the radio exclaimed, panic and fear quite evident in his voice. Bulma turned the volume down after that, thinking she had heard enough.

*_Damn it, they've started up again!* _she thought dismayingly.

While returning over to the window, where she found Gohan now affectionately giving Koji a "noogie", she weighed the decision of going to tell Gohan about it over in her mind. She hated when he went off to go face the Jinzouningen on his own; he was like a nephew to her, and it always scared her that she would never see him alive again whenever he went to go fight those devils. She could just imagine how this made Chichi. Other than her father, Gohan was the only family she had left in this world, and she knew it would really devastate her if something bad happened to him. Especially after Goku had died...

Oh, Goku. If only he was still there; had he overcome that heart virus, she knew the Jinzouningen's reign of terror wouldn't have lasted this long. No matter the challenge, even if it seemed insanely impossible to win, Goku would always found some way to beat the odds. After all, he defeated the seemingly invincible Furiza. Bulma sighed gloomily, as she realized once more that thinking of Goku wouldn't really help them in their situation. Goku wasn't there to save them any more, and she knew Gohan wouldn't be very happy with her if she hadn't told him about the broadcast...even if she was doing it for his own good.

Both Gohan and Koji looked up at once when Bulma came sprinting out of the house moments later.

"Is there something wrong, Bulma-san?" Gohan asked as he let Koji go. He noticed the look of consternation on her face at once.

"_Kaasan_?" Koji asked, concerned.

"It's the Jinzouningen!" she exclaimed. "They're attacking...Nicky Town!"

"Oh, no!" Koji gasped.

Beside him, Gohan's expression became as hard as stone in an instant. "Nicky Town this time, huh? That's only forty miles from West City."

"What are you going to do, Gohan-kun?" Bulma asked, as if she didn't already know.

"I'm going to go try and stop them, that's what," Gohan told her, his hands closing into fists at his sides.

"Would I be safe to say I'd be wasting my breath in telling you not to go?"

"You know I can't do that, Bulma," Gohan said, almost regretfully, turning his gaze toward the ground. Then he looked directly at her again. "And besides, I'm stronger than I was when I faced them last time. Maybe this time will be it…maybe I'll finally beat them."

_*Or maybe they'll kill you this time,* _Bulma countered silently, voicing that same terror that always gripped her whenever Gohan went out to fight the cyborgs. But she hoped he was right

"Gohan, can I come with you?" Koji asked.

"No!" Gohan and Bulma said together immediately.

"Huh? But why not?" Koji replied.

"You're not ready yet, Koji," Gohan said gently yet firmly. "You're still not even a Super Saiyajin."

"Come on, Gohan!" Koji implored. "I promise I'll be careful. You're going to need my help; isn't this what you're training me for? To help you against the Jinzouningen? How am I going to stand a chance against the Jinzouningen if I don't see how they fight? I don't even know what they look like! And besides..." Koji paused, his fists and his face hardened with anger. "I have to get revenge on them for killing my parents!"

While Gohan grew quiet, Bulma still had plenty to say.

"Absolutely not, young man!" she said hotly. "Didn't you just hear Gohan? You would only be a liability to him out there!"

"But Mother...!" Koji protested.

"No, he's right." Both Koji and Bulma turned towards Gohan.

"Yosh!" Koji cheered.

"Gohan! You're not serious are you!?" Bulma demanded, outraged. "Not only could Koji get himself hurt out there, he could also find-"

Realizing she was about to say too much, she stopped, glanced at Koji briefly, and then averted her gaze from his completely. Koji blinked at his foster mother in puzzlement.

"Look, how about this: I'll make Koji stay back while I take the fight to the Jinzouningen. I won't have him get involved at all under any circumstance. Agreed, Koji?" At the last part, he looked right at the younger boy earnestly.

"Oh, all right," Koji relented, though looked sulky about it.

"And who knows?" Gohan said. "Maybe seeing all the destruction and death caused by the Jinzouningen will give him that extra boost to turn into a Super Saiyajin like it did for me."

Bulma glared at the two, thinking they were both absolutely nuts. She wanted to scream no at them so badly, although she would prefer it if she could beat some sense into them both. Then, after an inner debate with herself, she sighed in resignation.

"Okay, fine," she gave in, thinking she was just as crazy as they were for even agreeing to this. "But you better not die on me, Koji, or you, Gohan! And remember Koji, you stay back and let Gohan do all the fighting. You're just there to watch!"

"Right. I'm only going to watch," Koji answered, stuffing his hands in his pocket; neither Gohan nor Bulma was aware of him crossing his fingers.

"And I promise we'll be back," Gohan assured her, though in the back of his mind he wasn't as confident about that as he sounded; when fighting the Jinzouningen, he knew anything could happen. But he pushed that kind of thinking out of his mind immediately. Turning toward Koji, he said, "Come on, Koji, we're wasting time."

"Okay." Koji went over to retrieve his scabbard and sword and slung them on his back.

Shortly, both Gohan and Koji were flying away at top speed.

"Be safe you two," Bulma murmured after she could no longer see them. She then turned and walked back inside the house miserably, knowing she had just made a terrible mistake.

* * *

Not too long ago, Nicky Town was a bustling city full of gleaming buildings. For years, the metropolis and the people who lived there had been fortunate enough to be spared the terror of the Jinzouningen.

That was until today.

At the moment, most of the city was plunged in flames, the glow from the fires making the sky seemed as if itself was ablaze. Buildings had either been dissected in half or just simply blown into debris. Dead bodies littered the ground here and there; some were men, some were women, and some were even children. Those who were still alive either tried to run towards the nearest exit or actually try to fight back.

Even now, a group of men with rifles were hammering the evil duo with a flurry of bullets. Juuhachi-gou and Juunana-gou withstood the assault with matching sneers on their faces. As if mere guns could stop them! It was only after the bullets had pealed off the unmarred bodies of the Jinzouningen that cold reality hit the men.

"My turn!" Juuhachi-gou said, smiling sadistically. She then fired a small ball of energy at the men and delighted in their screams of pain before they faded away into absolute nothingness. She brushed the hair out of her face. "Destroying cities sure is fun, huh? Take this one-how many hundreds of years did it take to become like this? But it only takes a moment to destroy it."

Juunana-gou said nothing, though he was smirking in agreement. While Juuhachi-gou got big thrill out of destroying the humans and everything they had work for in her own right, Juunana-gou always went into a high state of euphoria during their rampages.

From behind, a man suddenly came charging towards the pair, wielding an axe of all things. Without even looking, Juuhachi-gou fired a ki blast over her left shoulder, hitting the unfortunate man with perfect accuracy and killing him in an instant. Juuhachi-gou looked quite pleased with herself after that.

_*Humans really are useless scum,* _she mused sneeringly. _*It disgusts me to know that I was once one of them. Yes, they should all be eliminated. All of them.*_

"Well, this is no fun anymore," Juunana-gou sighed, looking bored. "Isn't there anyone with a little backbone to face us?"

Unexpectedly, someone answered him. From out of nowhere, a huge ki beam plunged out of the air and struck them both. For a few moments, the spot where the Artificial Humans had just stood was shrouded in a veil of smoke. When it eventually ebbed way, Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou were unsurprisingly still standing, unscathed.

"Now where did that come from?" Juuhachi-gou inquired, frowning as she looked around for whomever just did that.

"Why don't you take a look above us," Juunana-gou said, smirking.

Juuhachi-gou did just that. She saw what her brother was seeing, which were two males descending out of the air and alighting on the ground a short distance away from them. One of them was too familiar, dark-haired and muscular with spiky black hair, attired in a burnt orange gi outfit. The other with him was someone she hasn't seen before, however. He was obviously a few years younger, with fine, red hair and blue eyes. Her scowl deepened.

Beside Gohan, Koji stared at the Jinzouningen, utterly stunned. Not just because of the destruction they had caused, but also because their appearance. With this being his first time seeing them, he was expecting them to be covered all over in robotic parts, however, they looked like regular human beings. Why, those two looked a couple of years younger than Gohan. Had he not known what they were capable of, he wouldn't believe anyone who told them that these two were the reason that the world was so full pain and misery ...or that they were the ones who killed his father and birth mother.

Koji's face hardened at that thought. No matter how they looked, they still killed them, and now it was time for him to get payback for the parents he never got to know. The young boy drew back into the fighting posture Gohan had taught him.

Juunana-gou grinned at the two. "Well, well, if it isn't our old playmate, Son Gohan. Long time no see." The male cyborg's cool, blue gaze shifted toward the other teen. "And look Juuhachi, he's even brought a new friend along with him for us to play with."

Juuhachi-gou didn't reply, as she was too busy observing the boy with Gohan. For some reason she just couldn't seem to take her eyes off him. There was something...something she couldn't quite put her finger on that struck her as familiar about him. But what was it exactly? She nor Juunana-gou had no data on this newcomer. She surveyed him more closely. That scowl on his face reminded her an awful lot like the one she had seen on the face of the Saiyajin called Vegeta. Was he related to him or something? She had gotten a similar feeling when her and her brother had came across Vegeta that fateful day they had crossed paths.

Who was this boy?

"Today, it ends here, Jinzouningen!" Gohan vowed. "It's time to finally make you pay for all your crimes!" Looking briefly towards Koji, he said, "And you stay back."

"Okay," Koji promised sulkily.

Gohan's words had snapped Juuhachi-gou out of her deep thoughts, and she stared at him with her usual wicked smile.

"How very funny," she said disdainfully. "Piccolo and Vegeta said something similar to us, and this is what happen to them." On that note, Juuhachi-gou fired a ki blast at Gohan, but the half-Saiyajin had been prepared and easily dodged the beam.

What he wasn't ready for, however, was when Juuhachi-gou appeared right in front of him in the next instant and struck him with a hard right. The blow sent Gohan buffeting backwards a few meters, but the half-Saiyajin stopped himself. With a battle cry, he powered up to Super Saiyajin and flew back in at Juuhachi-gou. As she sidestepped him, Juuhachi-gou caught Gohan in the back with a kick as he passed by. Gohan shook it off and turned back toward his enemy...only to be greeted by a flurry of punches and kicks from the cyborg, each blow striking home. Backing up slightly, Juuhachi-gou rushed back in with a dropkick to Gohan's chest, sending the teen smashing back into a brick wall.

Juunana-gou watched it all in enjoyment.

Koji looked horrified.

Juuhachi-gou smirked evilly down at Gohan. "So much for you making us pay!" As she said that, she thrust her hand out towards him again, energy starting to crackle around her slender fingers.

"No, Gohan-san!" Koji shouted. "You witch! I want let you take him away from me!"

Quickly, unsheathing his word, Koji rushed in without hesitation to save his master. Hearing him, Juuhachi-gou turned around and her eyes widened when she saw Koji coming down towards her, swinging his sword. He managed to slice off her bangs. Juuhachi-gou stared down at the strands of hair on the ground, then back towards at Koji, and her face twisted into a visage of cold fury.

"You little bastard!" she hissed furiously. "How dare you cut my precious hair!"

Screaming, Koji flew back in to attack again.

"Don't do it!" Gohan yelled desperately. "You're no match for her! Stop...KOJI!"

The rage on Juuhachi-gou's face was replaced by confused shock as the mention of Koji's name struck a reverberating chord within her. Then, like it had been hidden away behind a door all this time and just needed the right key to open it, memories burst free. They were vague but simultaneously substantial.

These new memories flashed across her mind swiftly. She suddenly found herself remembering lying in a bed and screaming in pain, while an unfamiliar elderly woman and elderly man kept urging her to push something out. After that, it changed to her being handed a squalling infant with soft, crimson hair; next it changed to her wrapping the child up carefully and running away with him. The scene shifted again, this time showing her handing her child over to the woman she knew as Bulma Briefs; the scene shifted once more, to her remembering her promise to herself to not forget her son as Doctor Gero advanced on her, shutting her off soon afterwards...

Juunana-gou's amused expression turned into concern when he noticed Juuhachi-gou had completely frozen in place, a series of emotions rolling across her face. She looked as if she wasn't even on this world anymore. Meanwhile, that unknown kid was getting awfully close to her with his sword...

Just as Koji had reached his target and was about to bring his sword down in an arc to split her in half, Juunana came out of nowhere and caught him in the side of the face with a clasped punch. Koji let out a cry as he was knocked out of the hair and hit the ground with a hard thud. That snapped Juuhachi-gou out of her daze.

"Huh?" she said after returning back to the here and now. She was surprised when she saw that boy was no longer in the air coming towards her, however, she quickly discovered that it was because he was on the ground now.

With a groan, Koji tried to get back up, but a foot quickly descended down on his chest and pushed him back against the ground. Juunana-gou grinned dementedly back down at the teenager. Thrusting out a hand towards him, he gathered energy for the killing strike.

"Any last words before you die, brat?" he asked.

Koji briefly looked back at the Jinzouningen with fear in his eyes. But then his father's blood surged strongly through him than any other time it did, and he glowered defiantly back at the artificial human.

"Bakamono! You don't scare me!" Koji said spitefully. "If you're going to kill me, then do it!"

Juunana-gou stared back at Koji with a close cousin to surprise for a moment. Then he started to laugh. "I gotta say, I really like that moxie of yours. Most in your situation would just beg for their lives like the cowards all humans are."

In reply, Koji spat at his face. Juunana-gou gasped, stared down at the saliva on his face, back to Koji, then back at his own face again. His good-looking visage transmuted into pure rage.

"Why, you little punk!" he snarled, taking his other hand to clean his face off. "You're definitely dead now!"

"Koji, NO!" Gohan bellowed.

Quickly levering himself to his feet, Gohan tried to go save Koji. Nevertheless, at the last second, he and Juunana-gou got quite the shock, and Gohan froze in place. Before Juunana-gou could fire the energy blast, Juuhachi-gou appeared between him and Koji.

"Juuhachi-gou? What are you doing!?" Juunana-gou demanded, staring at the back of his sister's head as if she was someone else. "Get out of the way! I'm going to make that kid pay for disrespecting me like that!"

"No," Juuhachi-gou replied firmly.

"No!" Juunana-gou repeated, dumbfounded. "What do you mean "no"?"

"What I mean is, let's not kill him and Gohan just yet," Juuhachi-gou answered.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't?" Juunana-gou retorted, started to grow annoyed with his twin. "This little bastard spat on me!"

"Because, if we kill them now then we won't have any challenge," Juuhachi-gou explained.

"What are you talking about?" Juunana-gou wanted to know, stepping off Koji and reabsorbing his energy back into his body. He folded his arms. "There are still plenty of humans for us to have fun with. Getting rid of these two right now will be of no consequence."

"So says you!" Juuhachi-gou retorted. "Look, I don't like playing with regular humans the way you do. They're so annoying with their screams of mercy and help. These two can at least fight back and provide us with even more fun."

Juunana-gou seemed to consider what his sister just said.

"All right. Fine," he relented. "But next time we meet, we get to kill 'em."

"Let's go," was Juuhachi-gou's only response.

"Wait!" Gohan barked, his ki flaring around him. "You two aren't going anywhere!"

Gohan rushed at the two artificial humans again. Frowning, Juuhachi-gou simply lifted her right hand and fired a ki blast; the beam caught the advancing warrior full on, eliciting a scream of pain as Gohan plummeted out of the sky and struck the ground hard once more.

"Gohan-san!" Koji cried alarmingly. Hastily, he stood and rushed over to check on his mentor.

Juuhachi-gou momentarily scowled at the scene. Then she and Juunana-gou silently rose into the air and flew off. As they were leaving the ravaged city, unseen by her brother, Juuhachi-gou looked back out of the corner of her eye at the two only living people. Her gaze particularly lingered on Koji. _*Musuko.*_

* * *

Bulma sat alone at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of tea. She listened to the all-pervasive silence in the house, and also for any sign that Gohan and Koji had made it back. She remembered once upon a time how Capsule Corp used to be so full of life, when her parents and Yamucha and even Vegeta had been alive. While she still had Koji there with her, and had Gohan's visits to look forward to, it just didn't feel the same. Her home now felt as dead and empty as half of the world was now.

Her thoughts almost immediately turned back to Koji and Gohan. The two had been gone for quite a while since she had told them of the Jinzouningen attacking another city, and she didn't like it one bit. Gohan had been doing it for years and still wasn't anywhere close to being able to destroy the Jinzouningen. From what Gohan had told her, whatever he threw at the cyborgs, they were never fazed by any of his attacks, and that they also like to work together. Being a Super Saiyajin wasn't enough. Vegeta had been a Super Saiyajin, but the Jinzouningen had easily killed him. She didn't know if it was a miracle or just sheer luck that Gohan somehow managed to keep taking the fight to the artificial humans and come out alive to tell about it.

And now he was taking Koji out to fight with him.

There were so many reasons that worried her so much; his well-being, mainly. Koji may not be her biological son, but like any mother, she didn't like idea of him being in a fight for his life one bit. He wasn't even a Super Saiyajin yet and would be even less of a match against either of the Jinzouningen alone. While Koji had promised her that he would only watched, she knew him too well and knew how much Gohan meant to him. If Gohan got in trouble, there was no doubt in her mind he wouldn't hesitate to recklessly rush in and try to help him.

But something she found just as worrisome was what would happen if Koji came face-to-face with Juuhachi-gou. Would she even remember that he was her son and still kill him, anyway? She's never even let Koji seen pictures of the cyborgs, afraid Koji might find out if he ever saw what Juuhachi-gou looked like.

Telling Koji the truth about his real mother was something she'd always dreaded. After all, what was she supposed to say to him? "Hey, Koji, your mother isn't really dead, because she's one of the artificial humans trying to extinguish all life on the Earth."

Bulma hoped the day she'd have to tell him wouldn't be too soon, but also hoped he was still even alive for her to tell him someday.

As if her thoughts had summoned it-

"Hey, Mom! We're back. Where are you?" called Koji's voice from somewhere in the battered compound.

The tenseness in Bulma's body that had been there since Gohan and Koji earlier went away once at the sound of her son's voice. She went to the doorway and called back to him, "I'm in the kitchen, son!"

"I hope you have some food out on the table for us. We're starving!" a voice said teasingly.

_*Well, Gohan's talking about food, so he must be okay,* _Bulma thought wryly, as she went over to sit back down at the table. Moments later, the two came strolling inside the room together. Instead of telling them how worried they had her, instead she said, "It's a miracle, you two managed to actually come back in one piece. I would've started cooking dinner, but I didn't know if I would be eating alone tonight."

Gohan laughed a bit, as he and Koji took a seat at the table with her. "I know you're just saying that because you were concerned about us."

"Hmph!" Bulma replied. "So, how did things go...or was it the same as always?"

"Unfortunately," Gohan answered, frowning. He grimaced for another reason as his arm started to throb from where Juuhachi-gou had kicked him at earlier.

Bulma noticed it at once.

"Are you okay?" she inquired, trying to keep her tone neutral.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine," Gohan quickly assured her. "Those cyborgs just roughed me up a little, that's all." As Gohan tried to laugh it off, Bulma wasn't fooled one bit.

"Gohan, the Jinzouningen always rough you up a little," Bulma sighed. Silently she added, _*Oh, Gohan...I'm afraid that one of these days they might do more than just rough you up.* _

It was then that Bulma noticed how quiet Koji was being. He was looking very contemplative, staring down at his hands on the table.

"Koji, is there something wrong?" she asked.

Koji didn't respond.

"Hey, Koji," Gohan called.

A moment later, Koji stirred out of his deep thoughts. "Huh? Did you guys say something?"

"You looked like you were on another planet," Gohan said teasingly.

"Yeah, got something on your mind?" Bulma inquired.

Koji considered the question. "Well...I was thinking about Juuhachi-gou."

He missed the simultaneous widening of Bulma's and Gohan's eyes.

"Um, how come you're thinking about her?" Gohan inquired carefully.

"It's just that...well, I know her and Juunana-gou are our enemies, but...for some reason, I felt as if I should know Juuhachi-gou. I know that's strange, considering I just met her today, but when I was close to her I felt as if I'd known her all my life." Koji then laughed. "I know that must sound pretty crazy, huh?"

His mother and friend said nothing. Bulma glanced from Gohan to Koji and back to Gohan before she herself looked resigned. Taking a deep breath, she shifted her gaze directly on her adopted son, who looked back at her in confusion.

"I was afraid this would happen," she said, shaking her head.

"Huh?" Koji replied, puzzled.

"Koji...there's something I have to tell you," she said quietly. Bulma then took a seat between the two half-Saiyajin.

"Mom, what's going on?" Koji wanted to know; whatever it was, he knew it must be big from Bulma's reluctance to want to tell him in the first place.

"Remember when I told you that the Jinzouningen were the ones who killed your parents?"

"Yes," Koji replied slowly.

"Well, while it is true they killed your father...your birth mother is still very much alive."

Koji gasped, staring back at his adopted mother in shock.

"My birth mother...she's really still alive?" Koji repeated after finding his voice again.

"Yes, she is."

"My mother was alive all this time and you lied to me? Why?" Koji demanded, staring back at the woman who had raised him from birth with hurt, confused blue eyes.

Guilt stung Bulma at the sight of his expression.

"Listen, Koji," Gohan interjected. "Bulma kept this from you because she was only trying to protect you from the truth."

"Where is she now? Where is my mother?" Koji wanted to know.

Koji's brows creased, when Gohan and Bulma grew quiet again, trading hesitant looks; silence was really what he didn't need right now. Koji was a very emotional person to begin with, but after being told that his birth mother was still alive, his body was wound very tight with emotions right now.

"Please, tell me!" Koji pleaded when the two didn't say anything for a long moment.

Bulma and Gohan traded glances again, and Gohan gave Bulma an reassuring nod. Bolstering her resolve again, she turned to look directly at Koji again.

"You met her today," Bulma told him. "Your mother is...Juuhachi-gou!"

"Uso yo!" Koji instantly exploded, rising out of his chair. "That is...impossible! She's a machine!"

"But it's the truth, Koji," Bulma said gently. "She is your mother; except for the shape of your eyes, you look every bit like her and her brother-"

"No, stop it!" Koji shouted, eyes scrunched closed and his hands cradling either side of his head. "No, you're lying! That thing is not my mother! She just can't be, she just can't!"

Gohan quietly watched without comment.

Bulma continued. "Koji, I know this is a lot to take in, but you know I would never lie to you about something like this. I mean, you yourself just said there was something familiar about her just a few moments ago. "

Koji stood there for a long time, frozen. Then he stormed out of the kitchen.

"Koji, wait!" Bulma called after him.

Gohan placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, I'll go talk to him."

Gohan left the kitchen and went after Koji. Over the years, long before he had began training Koji to fight, Gohan had thought of the younger boy as a little brother. As such, he was very used to his moods and how he would react from them. Like now, as upset as he knew Koji was he automatically knew he was outside on the roof; Koji always went up there whenever he was bothered about something. And just as he had known, he found Koji sitting at the edge of the roof, his knees drawn up, his arms folded over his knees and his face hidden from view; though, Gohan knew he was crying. Gohan quietly walked over to him and took a seat beside him.

Gohan said nothing right away. He merely stared out into the distance, watching the sun continued to sank lower as evening approached. The silence stretched on for a long minute. Then, finally, Gohan asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

A pause.

"No," came the muffled reply.

"Hey, come on," Gohan cajoled, playfully nudging him with a elbow like a older brother would. "They say if you have a problem, you'll feel better talking about it."

"Feel better?" Koji retorted, lifting his head to look at his mentor, his expression hard. It was almost eerie how much he looked like the deceased Prince of Saiyajin, save for the glimmer of tears in his eyes. "How can talking about finding out that my real mother is actually one of those murderous artificial humans possibly make me feel better!?"

The anger and pain that reflected in his voice just then struck Gohan deeply, making him feel even sorrier for the younger boy's situation. He wished he knew what to do to make him feel better, but he didn't.

"Gohan..." Koji spoke, turning his gaze towards the horizon, "ever since I found out that Bulma wasn't really my mother, I had always wondered what my real mother had been like. When I was told that the Jinzouningen had killed her and my father, I wanted to do anything it took to avenge both of them. But now...now I find out that my mother is actually one of those monsters who've been killing those innocent people all these years. The same monsters who killed my father..."

"In spite of how I feel about Juuhachi-gou myself," Gohan started, his face grave, "it's obvious that she still remembers you."

"What do you mean?" Koji asked incredulously.

"Yeah, I think she actually remembers you," Gohan repeated, a small smile playing across his lips, "that's what I honestly feel in my gut. It was why she froze when she was about to attack you. I also believe that's why she stopped Juunana-gou from killing you, not because she wanted to save us for later."

Koji still didn't say anything else. He seemed to be turning over what Gohan had just to him in his mind. Then, he growled and shook his head. Koji rose to his feet and glared out towards the sky, clenching his fists at his side.

"I don't care about any of that!" he said in cold anger. "That still doesn't excuse her from what she's done. All those people...all those little children...I'll never forgive her for what she's done; never! She and Juunana-gou must pay for what they've done!"

"That's easier said than done, buddy," Gohan replied, standing with him. "You're still not even a Super Saiyajin yet."

"I know. And that's why I'm going to start training even harder than before," Koji said doggedly. "No matter what it takes, I will become a Super Saiyajin and defeat them both! For father and all the other people they murdered!"

Koji's vengeful pose was ruined when his stomach started growling. He flushed in embarrassment. Gohan laughed at him.

"Come on, let's go see if Bulma will fix us something to eat," he suggested.

"Yeah," Koji agreed.

With that, the two headed back inside the house, temporarily taking their minds off their troubles.

* * *

**To Be Continued**


	3. Loss and Gain

**Disclaimer: Must we go through this? Oh, okay, but we most of us already knew that Dragonball Z and its many characters is owned by Akira Toriyama, Toei, and other people with more money than me. I only own the original characters, which really won't be that many.**

**Chapter Two: Loss and Gain**

* * *

Something was wrong with Juuhachi-gou. As strong as their bond was due to them being twins, Juunana-gou was quite sure of it. While he had always been the more sadistic one between them, his sister's delight at killing and just causing destruction in general normally rivalled his own. Lately, however, whenever they went out on a rampage, she always seemed uncharacteristically subdued. Like a short while ago, for example, when they were attacking what was supposed to have been a hidden kingdom and its inhabitants. He had noticed again that his sister wasn't taking the usual pleasure she did out of their handiwork.

Now that he thought about it, her odd behavior actually started right after their encounter with Son Gohan and the unknown kid. That time when Juuhachi-gou had actually stopped from blasting the boy's brains out for spitting on him, he had been pretty annoyed. But that happened a year ago, and during that time the black-haired Jinzouningen had come to perfectly understand his sibling's decision that day. As much fun as killing the humans were, at the same time it could become quite boring since there wasn't many who could give them a decent challenge; it was the reason why they still kept Gohan alive to this day. Nonetheless, ever since that day in Nicky Town, Juuhachi-gou had become both very quiet and always seemed lost in thought; basically, she all she did now was sulked. He had never bothered to ask her about it before because he assumed she would've been over by this point.

Just what was making her look so damn seriously contemplative when it was such a nice day for death and destruction?

Right now, the two watched from a nearby hill as their latest conquest burned to the ground, along with all of its dead residents. At least Juunana-gou was. A few feet away from him, Juuhachi-gou sat on a boulder, still as a statue and arms crossed as usual. She seemed to staring down at the burning village as well, but the crease in her pale eyebrows told Juunana she was lost in thought again. He frowned.

It was time to get to the bottom of this.

"You're hiding something," Juunana-gou said.

The furrow in Juuhachi-gou's brows deepened a bit, as she looked askance at her brother out the corner of her eye.

"What are you talking about, Juunana-gou?" she asked. "I'm not hiding anything."

"Stop lying to me!" Juunana-gou accused, beginning to lose his patience.

Juuhachi-gou glared frostily at him. "Just because you and I are twins doesn't mean you have to know everything about me! So drop it!"

Another thing that had become evident of his sister as of late was that she had become quite short-tempered. Well, more so than usual, anyway.

"So, you _are _hiding something from me," Juunana-gou maintained.

"Didn't I say drop it!" Juuhachi-gou snarled, growing even more annoyed. With a growl, she stood up. "I'm tired of this place. Let's go, already." Not bothering to see if he was even going to follow her, Juuhachi-gou took off into the air. To be honest, in the mood she was in right now she really didn't care if he did or not.

Juunana-gou remained where he was for a moment longer, glaring at his sister's dwindling form. He was starting to wonder if something was wrong with her programming. She's been acting quite unlike herself for a while now, and he didn't like it one bit. *_I don't know exactly what you're hiding from me, Juuhachi-gou, but I will find out sooner or later.*_

With that quiet vow, Juunana-gou took off after his sister, though he stayed at a careful distance behind her. Right now, he didn't really feel all too comfortable flying alongside her like they normally did. Their aimless trip was a silent one. Neither spoke a word to each other for quite some time, both too occupied with his or her own thoughts (and not to mention annoyed with one another).

_*That damned brother of mine can be such a pest sometimes,* _Juuhachi-gou thought irritably. _*He just wouldn't be able to understand what's going on in my head now. How could he possibly know what it feels like to almost killed your own child?*_

That had been at the forefront of her mind ever since that momentous day. Thanks to Gero wiping her memories away-or at least attempting to- while he was turning her into what she was today, she had completely forgotten she had once given birth to a son. But then he appears before her out of the blue that day, and once Gohan said his name, memories of him returned in a instant. She remembered giving birth to him, she remembered taking him to Capsule Corp where his father lived, she remembered handing her son over to Bulma and telling her he was Vegeta's son.

Vegeta. Despite remembering her son, she had no memories at all of being with the Saiyajin Prince, not even vague ones. She knew nothing about Vegeta except for the data on him that Gero had programmed into her. The day Vegeta confronted her and her brother, he had said something to her that she had found odd at the time-

_"Y-You're behind all of this!...But why?"_

During that time, Juuhachi-gou never really gave his words that much thought, but now it all made sense. Maybe she didn't remember him, he definitely remembered her. From her files on Vegeta, he was just someone she could never see herself getting involved with like lovers; even as a human. Looking back on the prince, she guessed he was good looking in his own right, but he seemed too irritatingly cocky for her taste. She couldn't remember how she was like in her prior life, however, even still she just couldn't see them together like that. What was it that had drawn her former human self and the Saiyajin Prince to each other and make a child together?

_*He sure has grown,* _she thought with the hint of a smile, remembering her son's appearance after she hadn't seen him in years.

Then she shook her head and growled quietly in the back of her throat in frustration. She ferociously shoved down this foreign feeling of sentimentality down into the pit of her stomach. She wasn't used to feeling like this, and she didn't like it at all. At that moment, she really wished Gero had been successful in completely wiping out her humanity when he turned her into a cyborg. If he had, then she wouldn't be feeling this right now, or feeling anything period. She wouldn't have ever remembered Koji.

_*This is that brat's fault!* _she thought coldly angrily, her Jinzouningen side flowing stronger through her at the moment, shoving what humanity she had left in her to the side. _*I might have to really end up killing him after all if he does this to me...*_

* * *

Ever since the cyborgs' attack on West City, those who survived the assault that day had to travel to other towns or cities just to get food and other necessities. It was a miracle that as much devastation as the cyborgs have caused over the years that there were some civilization, besides West City, still standing, and with having a Saiyajin teenager to take care of, Bulma prayed to the higher beings out there that they could least keep it that way. In her opinion, they owed her, Koji, Gohan, and everyone else still left alive on the planet at least something for all the suffering they have had to contend with everyday.

Bulma glanced over at Koji out the corner of her eye. He was watching the world go by as they drove, his arm propped up on the door and his face propped in his hand, wearing an expression on his face that mirrored his father's. Koji had always been such a quiet kid; but these days he had become a little more so, brooding even- more accurately, he's been pretty quiet ever since he found out about Juuhachi-gou a year ago. She knew it was pretty hard for him to swallow the fact that his birth mother was one of the biomechanical fiends who was making life on Earth a living hell for everyone. In spite of knowing who his real mother is, Koji had kept calling her mother and basically pretended that she had never told him the truth. But she always saw that pained expression on his face whenever they heard a broadcast on the radio about the Jinzouningen attacking yet another civilization.

Bulma scowled. If she had the strength to, she would kill Juuhachi-gou. It burned her up inside to think about how she's made her son's life a nightmare. How could she do this to him? How could she help kill her son's very own father? When she got no answers, it made her fumed even more.

She turned a right and steeled herself, as her and her Koji had to travel down a road past numerous rubble that had once been a thriving civilization. She tried to keep her eyes straight on the road and not pay it any mind, but she couldn't as she noticed Koji was gazing at the destruction and the tightening of the frown on his face.

"Don't look, son," she said gently.

Koji turned his blue stare towards her for a moment, then looked away.

The rest of the ride back home was very quiet.

When the two arrived home, both Bulma and Koji were in autopilot mode, as they stepped out of the car and began carrying the groceries inside the house. The two were almost finished when a very welcomed form touched down in front of them. The mood of the mother and son lifted nearly at once.

"Gohan!" "Gohan-san!"

"Ossu, you two," Gohan greeted cheerily.

Later that evening, both Koji and Bulma were in a much better state of mind, as the two them and Gohan enjoyed dinner.

"It really is nice that you can have dinner with us again, Gohan-kun," Bulma remarked, while filling a bowl up with rice till it was nearly overflowing. "We hardly get to see you anymore. It really does make me long for the good, old days. When Koji and I were heading towards the grocery store this morning, I was thinking about adventure on Nameksei, and boy had that been quite the adventure!" Bulma sat the bowl of rice down in front of Gohan. She smiled nostalgically, when Gohan's expression turned elated at the sight of food, just like his father's face used to lit up at the sight of food.

Gohan and Koji wasted no time in scarfing down their food. A minute later, Gohan extended out a empty bowl towards Bulma.

"More, please?" he asked politely.

Bulma giggled. "Yep. Like father, like son," she said, as she took the bowl to fix him seconds.

"You really think I'm like my father?" Gohan asked, looking a bit surprised at the comparison.

"Of course!" Bulma assured him. "I mean, it's the way you eat, and how you're very powerful yet at the same time you're so gentle. Not to mention that outfit you have on."

Gohan half-laughed as he looked down at himself and ran hand across the material of the orange shogi that had belonged to his late father.

"I suppose it's always been a dream of mine to be as powerful as my father had been," he confessed. "Yes, it inspires me to wear his colors."

"Well, I know Goku, and I know he'd be extremely proud to see what a strong, young man you've grown up to be," Bulma said. She sat down another bowl full of rice in front of Gohan.

Listening to Bulma mention Gohan's dead father made Koji think of his own. He would often lay in his bed at night wondering what kind of person his father had been. He had asked both Gohan and Bulma about his papa, and they both had told him that he had been a proud, powerful man, who was sometimes to arrogant for his own good. Although, Bulma had made up for it by admitting how she never thought Vegeta was too bad a guy. She could tell that deep down he wasn't a complete jerk and seemed kinda lonely.

That used to make him immediately believe that his birth mother must've been something special to have captured his imperious papa's heart. However, now that he knew who she really was, that image he had formed of her had completely shattered. Unnoticeably, he shook his head, not wanting to think about the woman who had borne him at all.

"What about me?" Koji asked out of the blue.

Both Gohan and Bulma looked up at him. Koji stared back at them hopefully.

"What about me, Mother?" Koji asked. "Am I like my father?"

His mother and master exchanged glances, then looked back to him, obviously surprised by his abrupt question.

"Are you like your father?" Bulma repeated the question, looking pensive. "Hmm..."

Koji found himself being stared fixedly at by his mother. He tried his best not to fidget.

"I've never thought about it too much, but...yeah, you're definitely your father's son," Bulma told him.

"That's for sure," Gohan agreed.

"You two mean it?" Koji asked hopefully.

The two nodded.

"For starters, you have the same air about you as he did," Gohan said. "Not to mention Vegeta-san's drive to become a strong as possible."

Bulma giggled a bit and added, "And not to mention the fact you've inherited that mean look on your face from him, too. I used to worry a lot about you for that, but thank goodness you didn't turn out looking like him! You're more handsome, in fact."

Koji blushed. He never even assumed it was possible that he could be handsome, though a part of him wondered if she just said that because she was his mother. More importantly, though, finding out that he and the dead father he never got to knew weren't that too much different from each other like he thought had really raised his spirits.

"Oh, by the way, Gohan, I've been hearing rumors that you've been fighting the cyborgs by yourself again," Bulma said. She smiled smugly when Gohan suddenly looked sheepish. "Is that really true?"

"Yeah," Gohan admitted.

Bulma sighed. "Look, I know I can't keep you from going to fight them, but please try to be careful. I don't want anything to happen to you."

"I've gotten so much stronger though, Bulma-san," Gohan said, looking serious. "Where once all I could do was just run away from the cyborgs, now I can fight them back fairly well!"

Bulma and Koji gasped in cadence.

"That's awesome, Gohan-san!" Koji praised.

Bulma gave the dark-haired hybrid warrior an evaluating look. "I can see it. You have toughen up a lot, haven't you?...Nonetheless, Gohan-san, there's still just one of you and two of them. Don't take any risks you don't have to."

"Okay," Gohan promised, nodding.

"Well, I'm sure you can do it, Gohan-san!" Koji said confidently.

Gohan smiled. "Thanks," he said, then reach over to playfully tousle Koji's hair.

"Hey!" Koji protested, while laughing at the same time.

Bulma quietly watched the scene with a smile. It was good to see Koji laughing again, something that Gohan could always get him to do. After dinner, Gohan had to take his leave and said his goodbyes, though not before promising Koji that he would be by tomorrow to pick him up for some training. Bulma and Koji waved goodbye to him as they watched him fly away.

"Bye, Gohan! Tell Chichi I said hi!" Bulma shouted after the disappearing warrior.

"See you tomorrow, Gohan-san!" Koji called.

Bulma beckoned Koji back inside the house, however, just as she turned-

"Mom, wait."

"Huh? Yes, son?" Bulma asked, turning back around to see what he wanted...

...and was surprised when Koji suddenly ran over and hugged her. He hadn't done that since he was a little kid. She hugged him back.

"Not that I'm not enjoying this, but what brought this on?" Bulma asked, sounding amused.

"It's just that...well, I wanted to say thanks," Koji replied.

Bulma looked at him blankly. "Thanks for what?"

"For everything," Koji said. "For taking care of me all these years, even though I'm not really your son. I know I was just dropped into your lap, and you could have even sent me to a orphanage or something, but you didn't, and for that I really thank you. Juuhachi-gou may have given me birth, but I'll always think of you more as my mother."

"Oh, Koji!" Bulma gushed; it took all her control to not start crying. She hugged him again and kissed him on the head. "You didn't need to thank me. I've enjoyed taking care of you all these years. And I don't care if we aren't related by blood, you _are _my son as far as I'm concerned."

* * *

As the sun made its westward trek towards the sky, sunlight swept across an all but forgotten city, dispersing the shadows and revealing nothing short of devastation. This was more of the Jinzouningen's handiwork. Out of the entire city, the only structure left intact was an old, slightly broken down manor. Once upon a time, this house had belonged to a man named Mark Satan; he had a daughter who lived there with him, Videl, and as well as many butlers and maids. He had been a renowned martial artist who hit it big at the triennial Tenkaichi Budokai when he won the championship title. Back then, the mansion had been beautiful and grand, always gleaming under the light of the sun. The lawn and rose bushes had always been neatly manicured, and the pool cleaned out every month. The double steel gates at the end of the driveway had stood strong and sturdy, with a camera attached to the very top of the gate to see who was coming and leaving at all times, and a nearby intercom hooked on the left side of the gate for visitors to announce their arrivals.

Life had been pretty good for the Satan family.

Then Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou appeared.

Unfortunately for the Satan family, the cyborgs had taken a surprising interest in their home, and the father and daughter and all their servants had been horribly evicted. Over the years, the beauty that the manor and the land it stood on once had faded away. The manor had lost its impressive luster, becoming dull and dusty; cracks decorated all the windows. The lawn was wild and thigh-high, with weeds snaking out to lay crisscross over the cracked walkway. The rose bushes had all but wilted and eventually died. The backyard was in similar fashion, and the once clear-blue water that filled the pool was now a dirty color and full of sludge from years of not being cleaned.

But in spite of how deplorable it looked, the manor wasn't as lifeless as one might think by taking a first glance at the manor. When they weren't wiping out every human they could get their hands on, it was this mansion that Juuhachi and Juunana came to- their new home.

Just now, one of the tenants could be seen staring out through one of the many windows on the top floor of the mansion. When you are an artificial human, one really didn't need to sleep or eat, but sleep is what Juuhachi-gou did last night. As she did, something she found startling happened: she dreamed. She didn't know why she was so surprised about that, as she knew she still had some of her old humanity left intact. Both her and Juunana-gou did. But what really startled her is what the dream had been about. In the dream, she was killing humans left to right, as usual, when suddenly, her son appeared in front of her as a baby, crying and calling out to her and reaching out for her. Then, not under her volition, her hand thrust out towards the child and started gathering energy. She tried to reabsorb the energy or pull her hand back, but someone else was in control. And then the blast hurtled forth and-

she woke up. And she hadn't been back to sleep since then. She had got out of bed and went over to the window, and that's what she's been doing for the past few hours or so.

She didn't like what was happening to her. Feeling things like guilt and having nightmares- this wasn't supposed to be happening to her. She was a Jinzouningen; she was supposed to be a cold, ruthless, emotionless killing machine. And yet, she couldn't forget the way her heart seized with actual fear in the dream, when she tried to stop herself from firing the energy blast at her son, but was unable to.

Juuhachi shook her head and snarled exasperatedly in the back of her throat. All this started when she had that unexpected reunion with the son she had forgotten all about. It was starting to drive her insane. She felt like going out and destroying something. That always made her feel better whenever she was upset about something.

There was suddenly a knock on the door.

"May I come in?" asked her brother's dry voice.

"Don't you usually do, anyway," Juuhachi-gou retorted.

The door to her room opened, revealing a half-smirking Juunana-gou.

"I see you're till troubled by whatever it is you seem to be so set on keeping from me, your own brother," he said, his tone slightly accusing.

Juuhachi-gou opened her mouth to retort, though something entirely different came out of her mouth.

"Do you ever...do you ever have memories of the human you once were before Dr. Gero found us? Even faint impressions." Even before Juuhachi-gou glanced peripherally at her twin, she knew to expect a expression of surprise on his face.

Juunana blinked at his sister a few times. "Memories of when I was a human?" he repeated slowly. Then he snorted. "Of course not! Why waste my time reflecting on that insipid human I once was?" He frowned. "While I hated that old geezer for what he did, at the same time I'm grateful. Humans are weak, fragile creatures who die of old age and disease. As Cyborgs, we don't have to worry about such idiocy! We don't ever have to worry about dying at all! We've become the new Gods of this world, and no one can stop us!"

Juuhachi-gou had quietly watched her brother during his whole speech. Due to how big his ego is, she had expected such a response from her brother. She had to admit he made some valid points about their advantages as Jinzouningen. Still, that was so easy for him to say that. He didn't have the same worries as she did.

"Don't tell me that's why you've been acting like you have lately," Juunana-gou said.

"Was there something you wanted?" Juuhachi-gou asked, a note of impatience in her voice.

Juunana-gou scowled at his sister for clearly evading his question. He decided to let the matter drop, for now.

"Yeah, get this: some humans have gotten brave enough to open up a new theme park not too far away from here. It's called Super World."

"Are you serious?" Juuhachi-gou asked in disbelief, turning around to face her twin. "I can't believe that the humans would be this stupid. They're practically begging to die."

"I'm heading over there," Juunana-gou announced. "You coming along?"

Juuhachi-gou remained quiet for a long time, apparently thinking it over. With her current temperament, she really could use a good distraction. For the first time in a long while, she truly looked like old self as a malicious smile twisted her lips.

"Yes, let's go to Super World," Juuhachi-gou said. "Now that I think about it, I really could go for playing with the humans today."

Juunana-gou grinned. "I just knew you would."

* * *

When the Jinzouningen appeared at Super World, the two made their presence known at once; a rare day of fun at an amusement park was instantly transmuted into yet another day of terror. The Cyborgs took over Super World in no time, killing the attendants and the Town Militia that had been set up to protect the amusement park. Normally, the twins would raze their targets down to rubble, but at the moment the two just simply wanted to have fun on the rides like any other person.

And then Son Gohan and Koji alighted before them.

Juuhachi-gou and Juunana-gou immediately looked up (in Juunana-gou's case, looked around), when they heard soft thumps. Neither were surprised to see that it was Son Gohan, however, when she instantly saw Koji standing alongside him, glaring death at both her and her brother (though at her in particular) Juuhachi-gou's pale brows rose questioningly.

_*Does he sense who I am?* _she wondered.

"My, my. Look what the wind blew in," Juunana-gou remarked sneeringly. He broke out into an evil grin. "So how long as it been, Son Gohan? A year? Well, anyway, this time, you or your little friend won't be getting away." Looking back at his sister, he added, "Will they, Juuhachi?"

Juuhachi-gou briefly looked at her brother, and threw a secret glance at her son, before looking back at Juunana-gou again. She shrugged.

"I could care less," she said indifferently. "Do whatever you want to them." She then started up the merry-go-round again and the unicorns started moving with life, carrying her around the carousel.

Turning towards Koji, Gohan earnestly said, "Stay back, Koji."

Koji nodded and backed away. Meanwhile, both Gohan and Juunana-gou drew back into fighting stances. Energy exploded out of the ground between the two. The fight was on.

Over on the merry-go-round, Juuhachi-gou tried to tune out the sounds of fighting on behind her. She tried to ignore that her son had come with Gohan again, though clearly hearing him urging his friend on to victory sure didn't help things. But then she heard a particularly nasty crash behind her and couldn't help but to look back out the corner of her eye. *_I wonder how Juunana-gou's doing?*_

Juunana-gou wasn't doing as great against Gohan today. Juunana had started out fine, even when Gohan had transformed. However, the tide of the battle took an abrupt turn as Gohan managed to slip through his defenses and strike him in the jaw with a hard punch, and it's been all Gohan ever since then. With a hard front kick, Juunana-gou went sprawling backwards through the air, his head hitting a metal gate, causing him to briefly bounce higher into the air before he started to plummet towards the ground again. Gohan rushed after Juunana-gou to maintain his advantage over him-

-then Juuhachi-gou appeared out of nowhere and surprised him with a palm strike to the face. Gohan went slamming into the glass window of a empty cafe, cracking it before he slid off and hit the ground. Gohan cried out, as the glass from the window fell down on him in a vicious deluge, slicing his clothes and skin.

"Gohan-san!" Koji exclaimed worriedly.

"Man, he's definitely improved since last time," Juunana-gou remarked as he rose back up into the air behind his sister. He took the back of his hand and wiped away a thin trail of blood off his mouth. Juunana-gou stared down at the blood on his sleeve and shook visibly in rage. That settled it; Gohan's shelf life had definitely just run out.

"Let's take him out together," Juuhachi-gou suggested.

"Sure!" Juunana-gou agreed.

"Go!" Juuhachi-gou said.

The twins then moved into action. Koji gasped and gaped in horror as the cyborgs charged at Gohan, moving in flawless coordination. Juuhachi-gou struck first with a chop block to Gohan's left leg. Juunana-gou followed up with a hard knee to Gohan's midsection, and his sister did more damage by hitting Gohan in the face with the back of her fist.

"Gohan-san!" Koji screamed, charging. He wasn't about to let them kill Gohan as well!

"Hm?" Juuhachi-gou noticed her son approaching. Reflexively, she clasped both her hands together over her head, gathered ki and fired a large ki blast. Seeing the blast approaching, Koji quickly leaped backwards, and the beam struck the space he stood in just a few seconds ago. Koji immediately moved back into action, aiming straight towards his birth mother. Juuhachi-gou backflipped away, drawing Koji away from Gohan and Juuhachi-gou to the very top of one of the rides. The two stared each other down.

"Kid, you better get out of here while you still can," Juuhachi-gou warned, her voice neutral.

Koji's eyes briefly widened, a bit surprised that she would say that to him. Then he glowered at her ferociously as he remembered all the horrible things she had done and was trying to do to his only friend.

"Why would you care what happens to me, _Mom_?" he spat venomously.

Juuhachi-gou's expression twisted in surprise. "So, you know about me?"

"Yes, and I wish I didn't!" Koji said wrathfully, his fists clenching. "I hate you! I hate the fact that I was born from you! I'll never forgive you for killing father, and I won't let you kill Gohan-san either!"

There was nothing left to be said. Koji lunged across the gap between him and the Jinzouningen, striking away. Juuhachi-gou deflected each strike, not really putting forth any effort. While her Jinzouningen half was telling her to kill him already, the part of her that was still human- his mother- held back from doing so, leaving her conflicted.

Distracted by these contrasting feelings, Koji managed to get in a knee to her stomach. Juuhachi-gou's eyes widened, embarrassed that she had let someone who should never be able to touch her land a blow. At that instant, her Jinzouningen nature flowed through her stronger than ever. Glaring down at the boy in rage, she returned the favor with a hard haymaker to the side of his face. Koji was about to fall backwards but Juuhachi-gou caught him by the collar, keeping him hoisted in the air. Raising her free hand, Juuhachi-gou gathered ki, energy swirling into a globe.

Below, Gohan saw a glow in the sky out the corner of his eye and turned to see what it was. He blanched, gasping in horror.

"Koji!"

Koji glared back at his mother defiantly. "Go ahead. Kill me...like you did father! You monster!"

Juuhachi-gou wanted to. She really wanted to throw the ki blast. She really wanted to. Then-

_She stared down at her newborn son with so much love in her eyes, fondly caressing his soft, bright hair as she slept away in her arms. Through all the pain, misery, and every other horrible thing she's endured during her life, giving birth to him was undoubtedly the happiest moment of her life. He was the silver lining in her dark cloud. He was proof that her humanity hadn't been taken completely away from her...Her Koji..._

Both Gohan and Juunana-gou had noticed how Juuhachi-gou had frozen up again, as she held Koji in one hand and the instrument of his destruction in the other one. Acting fast, Gohan flew upwards towards the pair and kicked the blond Jinzouningen away from Koji. However, before he could grab his pupil, Juunana-gou fired an energy bolt at Koji, eliciting a groan of pain from the young teenager as the blast hit home. He began to fall listlessly backwards through the air.

"Koji!" Gohan quickly rushed over to catch the other half-Saiyajin.

Turning toward Juuhachi-gou, Juunana shouted, "Juuhachi-gou! Wake up already!"

That snapped her awake. Without really thinking about how Gohan was suddenly holding Koji when she had just had him a few seconds ago, Juuhachi-gou threw the same ki blast she had intended to kill Koji with in the first place at them both. Quickly, Gohan protectively turned them around so that the blast could hit him instead of Koji.

Juunana-gou joined his sister in the air, firing volley after volley of ki blasts. On the ground, Gohan ran with the unconscious Koji towards some place safe, while trying to avoid the energy bolts at the same time. He eventually found a chunk of wall and quickly dove behind it. Laughing sadistically, Juunana-gou raised both hands and tossed two particularly enormous beams down on the amusement park, a huge explosion coming to life an instant later, expanding outward to engulf other parts of the city. Juuhachi-gou observed it all with an opaque mien, her hair fluttering wildly as they were trapped in the air currents of the concussion.

For a long time, it sounded as if the planet itself was about to tear apart. Then things slowly, very slowly stilled, thick, bleak silence following. Beneath them, as the smoke finally cleared, the amusement park and most of the city itself had been completely demolished.

Juunana-gou laughed sadistically. "Ha! I definitely get bonus points for that!"

His sister said nothing, but he didn't notice.

"Come on. That definitely finished Wonder Boy and that brat," Juunana-gou said. "Let's go play with some of the other humans."

Without so much a word, Juuhachi-gou turned and followed her brother as he soared away in search of more quarry. Though Juuhachi-gou did glance back down at the rubble that had once been Super World before she could no longer see it again.

Shortly after they left, one of the piles of rubble started to shift and Gohan crawled out of it. He was in horrible condition. Unfortunately, when the Jinzouningen had been firing away trying to find him and Koji, more than one blast had caught him on his left arm and severed it off completely. He immediately started to search for Koji's whereabouts. He found him a few feet away, unconscious and half-buried underneath rubble.

"Ko...ji..." Gohan grunted out. He started to crawl towards him, something that wasn't easy to do with only one arm. "Don't die on me, kid. You just can't."

Gohan reached inside his sash and pulled out a familiar, small brown sack. He used his one hand to reach inside and pulled out the remaining senzou bean.

"Would you look at that? Only one left, just like I have only one arm left," he said, somehow managing to joke in spite of his condition. "Now what will I do?"

Gohan didn't think too long. He reached over and pushed the bean into Koji's mouth.

"Stay...alive..." Gohan said, before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he blacked out.

* * *

In the darkness of her lab, Bulma sat at her computer, brows furrowed in intense concentration as her fingers moved with swift adeptness across the keys. Then she hit a wrong key and had to backspace. She swore softly in irritation. It was the sixth time she had messed up and had to backtrack. She just couldn't seem to think straight. She just had too much on her mind, especially ever since what had happened several days ago-

_Bulma sat at her computer hard at work on a top-secret project; had it not been for the light of her computer monitor, she would have been sitting in complete darkness, but she paid very little attention to that. Her mind was focused mainly on what she doing. Displayed on the screen was a blueprint, and on the blueprint was the image of a new aircraft she had started working on a while ago when an idea had suddenly hit her. When it had came to her, she had felt like such an idiot for not thinking of it sooner. Everything was still in the planning stages, and while she wasn't completely sure that her project would really work or not, she was going to try to the best of her abilities to make it work. She just had to. This project could very well be her and everyone else's last hope against the Jinzouningen._

_She suddenly heard footsteps approaching from behind, and quickly looked around to see who it was. Bulma was relieved to see Koji step out of the shadows, however, her heart sank into her shoes at once when she saw him carrying an unconscious Gohan in on his back. Immediately, she noticed that Gohan's left arm was missing, and her face turned very pale. _

_"Oh, no! Gohan," she cried in horrified shock, quickly rising out of her chair and running over to them. "What happened to his arm?" _

_"Long story short, we were beat up pretty bad," Koji explained succinctly. _

_"Quickly, get him to a bed!" Bulma ordered urgently. As Koji went to do that, Bulma turned back to the computer to save her work, turned it off, and ran out of the room..._

Bulma sighed as she sat back in her chair, trying to keep her emotions under control. This was just too much. Gohan had been the only fighter left on Earth that could at least keep the Jinzouningen at bay for a while, but now he's lost an arm. From what Gohan had told her of his battles with the cyborgs prior to the horrible incident, he couldn't even put a dent in them. There was definitely no way Gohan could beat them now that he only had one arm to fight with. If he tried to...the outcome she predicted from that scenario made a chill crawl down her spine.

With his Saiyajin genes, Gohan had recovered four days later, and in spite now having only one arm, he had taken it in stride- another trait, she knew, that he had inherited from his father. While he told her he felt better and that he could still fight the Jinzouningen, Bulma had adamantly told him he would do no such thing and called him crazy for even thinking he could go fight those mechanical fiends with just one arm while they still had both of theirs.

Bulma had suggested to Gohan that he stay at Capsule Corporation for a while, at least until she could find some way to gently explain things to his mother for him, because she knew it would be a horrible shock to Chichi if she him walking into the house with only one arm. While Gohan slept, she had called Chichi and told her that Gohan was there, safe, and currently asleep.

Poor Chichi, she had never been the same since Goku had died, and Bulma just knew she worried herself sick over Gohan whenever he was away from home for days on end, knowing that he was trying to fight the Jinzouningen on his own. That made her realize how foolish and incredibly stupid she herself had been for allowing Koji to go out into battle with him. What was she thinking allowing him to go off with Gohan to fight the cyborgs? She had to be out of her mind to agreeing to something so stupid. The next time she saw him today, she was going to tell Koji she forbid him to try and face the Jinzouningen, whether he liked it or not.

Bulma suddenly decided to go check in on Gohan. Saving her work and turning the monitor off, she headed towards the medic room. Ever since that day, Koji had been sitting by Gohan side at all time, feeling personally responsible for his friend's condition, though Gohan had assured him many times that it wasn't his fault. Bulma had finally reached the door.

"Okay, you guys, I'm coming in," she announced. "Hey, are you two-" Bulma trailed off in her words immediately, when she opened the door and found the room completely empty. The window, however, was noticeably wide open. Bulma could only stare in bafflement for a long time. Then her face twisted in a scowl and she growled in exasperation.

"Damn those two!"

* * *

Miles away from West City, the missing two half-Saiyajin sat leisurely atop of a precipice; the slanting shadows of the clouds drifted over them, providing them some brief shade in the hot sun. Well, rather, Gohan was the one being leisure, laying across the surface of the cliff, his only arm pillowed underneath his head. While a mere couple of inches away, Koji sat at the edge of the cliff, still radiating self-loathing and frustration from another failed try at trying to become a Super Saiyajin.

"Hey, take your mind off trying to become a Super Saiyajin for a while and relax," Gohan suggested.

"But I can't," Koji replied, glaring down at the several feet below him. "I got so close today! I thought I was really going to transform, but then nothing. I'm so pathetic! Why does it keep going wrong every time? Can't you tell me why, Gohan? I just don't know how to do it."

"Don't say that," Gohan told him gently. "You can do it, Koji, just like I could. It's as I told you the other day, the right elements have to be involved for the transformation to take place, and all that rage you feel inside, don't let it control you, you take control of it." Gohan's face hardened as he turned his gaze skyward. "For me, it had been real easy. All I had to do was think about how the Jinzouningen killed Piccolo-san and Kuririn-san and everyone else, then I felt a intense burning sensation within me that turned from pain to rage. It's maddening, and I don't ever want something like that to happen again, something so unfair. They didn't deserve to die like they did, none of the people the Jinzouningen killed deserved to die like that. And then the dam broke."

Koji had hung onto every world Gohan had just told him. _*Don't let my rage control me, take control of it...*_

Aloud he said, "Gohan-san, do you want to know why I train so hard with you?"

"Hm?" Gohan replied, all ears.

"Well..." Koji hesitated, blushing slightly. Normally, he was a person liked to keep his private feelings to himself; in this day and age, most people were like that. But then he remembered it was just Gohan- the person he trusted the most in the world next to his mother. In fact, in some aspects, he trusted even more than her. "You how I've never seen a picture of my father's face before, right? You might find this weird, but you see I have this image of father in my mind, but he's always so far away that I still can't see him. So I think that I can manage to catch up to my father and finally see his face, then surely I would be able to defeat the Jinzouningen. But instead of me catching up to him, it always seem like my father is rapidly leaving me behind."

Looking around, Koji his mentor watching him, and then he turned away, chagrined.

"I knew it. You think I'm crazy."

Gohan shook his head. "Don't worry, you have Vegeta-san's blood," Gohan told him, smiling encouragingly. Koji looked back at him in surprise. "You'll soon be able to become a Super Saiyajin, absolutely!"

_*That's right!* _Koji realized. _*As long as I have my father's blood in me, I should be able to become a Super Saiyajin, too. I just have to train harder!*_

"But I really understand how you feel..."

"Eh?" Koji replied, looking up at his sensei curiously. He found Gohan looking pensively down at his _shogi_.

"I made this _shogi _thinking...that if I could be come as strong as my father..." Gohan said. "Then I could beat the Jinzouningen for sure."

"Son...Goku-san, right?" Koji asked, nodding. "Mother tells me that it always surprises her how when you wear that _shogi_ you look just like Goku-san."

Gohan sighed. "Looking like my father isn't the problem. But I guess there's no way I would be just like him in power." He then started to laugh...but there was no humor in it at all, nor in his eyes, which was why Koji tossed him a look of pity.

_*Gohan-san...* _he thought sympathetically.

In the next moment, a thunderous roar proceeded a terrific flash of light that enveloped the area. Quickly, the two warriors got to the edge to take a look, already knowing what they were going to find. Smoke was issuing from the city below, and they could clearly hear the screams of terror coming from the citizens. Then, right in front of their eyes, another explosion went off.

The Jinzouningen were at it again.

"Oh, no! The city!" Koji cried.

"Da-damn it..." Gohan growled, clenching his fist. "I-I won't let them get away with this any longer!"

Thinking of the Jinzouningen attacking those helpless people down below, Gohan summoned up his ki and transformed. He turned to his young pupil.

"Koji, you stay here, all right!"

"No! I'm going if you are, Gohan!" Koji argued instantly. "I've gotten a lot stronger too! Didn't you just tell me that I had improved a lot? Besides, with your injury, who knows what will happen if those two gang up on you this time! And you know how personal this is for me! Please, Gohan, let me help you."

Gohan stared down at the younger teen for a long time, and Koji met his gaze back with a steely glint in his. Suddenly, Gohan's expression softened and he smiled good-naturedly.

"All right, Koji, you win," he relented. "Let's go down there and stop them once and for all!"

"Yosh!" Koji cheered.

Smiling in fierce determination, Koji turned back towards the direction the Jinzouningen were attacking, geared up to go into battle. Then Gohan chopped him across the back of his neck with his remaining hand. The teenager's eyes widened as the blow made contact, his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he started to fall over. Before he could hit the ground, Gohan quickly caught him by the back of his shirt, gently laying him down.

"Forgive me, but this is for your own good...And for the good of the planet as well," he murmured, staring down at the unmoving young warrior. "If you died, then there wouldn't be anymore warriors left to save the Earth. You're the last warrior with the potential to be capable of defeating those cyborgs after a few years...Koji, you are the last hope."

The area abruptly shook again. Gohan immediately glanced toward city again, grimacing at the sight of another explosion afterimage.

"I'm off now, Koji," he said with a grim note of finality in his voice. Looking down at Koji again, a sad smile touched his lips. "Wish me luck, my little brother."

With no words left to say, the one-armed Gohan braced himself and flew off into battle again.

* * *

Koji's eyes opened again some time later, awakened by something he couldn't describe, like a feeling of extreme urgency. For a brief moment, he wondered why he was lying down, but then he remembered feeling a hand coming down hard on his neck, followed by a voice that sounded exactly like Gohan's telling him-

"Gohan?" he screamed, immediately realizing that Gohan wasn't on the cliff with him anymore. That quickly propelled him back to his feet. He vaguely noticed that the sky had turned a dark gunmetal gray while he had been out, as he instantly looked down towards the city, knowing that's where Gohan had went. His eyes widened when he saw the once burning city eerily silent, streams of smoke still issuing from it. "Oh, no! Gohan, why didn't you let me go with you?"

He immediately flew down in search of Gohan. As he did, the rain had started up again, but Koji ignored it. Finding Gohan was much more important to him. He reached the city in no time, and searched high and low for his friend. He called out to him several times, but he saw nothing nor heard anything. All this stillness and no sign of Gohan was started to make the chilling feeling in the pit of his stomach grow even more, and a forbidding thought slowly started to creep inside his mind; however, he angrily shoved it away.

Gohan was just fine. He would find him, and they would both head back to his house where he knew his Bulma-kaasan was waiting to severely lambaste them both for sneaking out to train. Yeah, that was going to happen-

That line of thought abruptly stopped, when Koji looked down into the middle of the street. He gasped. He had finally found Gohan; his mentor was lying face down in a puddle, unmoving. That feeling of dread Koji had started to feel seconds go came back tenfold.

"Gohan!"

He touched down a few feet away. Koji felt as if he was moving through mud as he slowly walked towards Gohan. The rain was also coming down harder.

"No, no, no, no, no, no..." Koji muttered in denial, not wanting to believe what his brain was telling him. But...but..."Oh, no, Gohan."

Tears started to stream down his face, mixing with the rainwater, as cold realization gradually started to sink in. He tried his best to ignore it, but he wasn't able to. Gohan was dead. Gohan, his only friend, his master, his big brother...was dead.

"Why? Why did you have to do this, Gohan?" he demanded quietly. "Why did you have to leave me? It's not fair, you didn't deserve this!"

He had finally drew up beside Gohan, staring down at quiet horror as he could see his friend's final expression of agony in the puddle. In doing so, he found himself remembering hearing a part of what Gohan had said to him before he completely blacked out.

_"Koji, you are the last hope..." _

"Why did this have to happen?" he asked no one in particular. "You were my only friend- my brother! You meant the world to me... This just isn't fair." Bending down, he turned Gohan over and shook him in a final vain attempt to wake him up. Gohan remained unresponsive. He cried in racking sobs as he hugged Gohan, finally accepting the cold hard reality. "Gohan-san..."

*_My mother and uncle have taken someone else I care about from me.*_

The rain fell down even harder, lightning roaring and flashing in the dark sky overhead. Gently, Koji placed Gohan back down on the ground, using his right hand to close his eyes. Standing, he closed his own as a maddening heat set his chest aflame, then every other part of him. His whole body started to shiver and it had nothing at all to do with the cold rain. The heat within him started to build and build and build and build, until he exploded, screaming his rage to world for the death of his best friend.

"It wasn't fair! It wasn't fair! It wasn't fair!" he screamed repeatedly.

At last, something broke within him and all his rage poured out. Whatever inner inhibition he had before was gone; he held nothing back. His pupils momentarily disappeared and eyes glowed pure white. Gold flames exploded out of his body, his blue eyes turning blue-green, and his red hair rising off his head and stiffening into yellow-white spikes. The whole city shook from the birth of a new Super Saiyajin, and Koji dropped to his knees and banged his fists into the ground over and over at the unfairness of it all.

* * *

The bizarre lightning lit up the sky outside Capsule Corporation, and Bulma watched it bleakly from the kitchen window.

"It sure is pouring down out there," she murmured. "I hope Koji-chan and Gohan-kun make it back soon."

While she had calmed down after her son and Gohan left the way they did, she still planned to give the both of them a big piece of her mind whenever they got back. She had been left so agitated, and worried about the dreadful chance they might run into the cyborgs, that she wasn't able to focus on her mind on working on the time machine.

A little later on, Bulma stepped out of the kitchen and into the hallway-

Then she screamed and jumped when she found Koji already standing in the hallway.

"Koji!" she exclaimed, holding a hand to her chest, as her heart was still hammering from that scare. "What are you doing sneaking around for!? Next time, warn an old woman you're here! You really startled me-Koji?" Bulma's flow of chatter broke off, when she finally noticed her son's appearance and how different it was since she saw him last. She stared in wonder. "Koji! You're a Super Saiyajin! That's great!"

Koji didn't respond; he kept staring downward at the floor, his eyes too dark to see.

Bulma looked up, as she noticed a certain someone was missing.

"Where is Gohan-kun?" she asked, scowling down at her son. "And by the way, the next time you two sneak away, how about letting me know!"

"He's not coming back," Koji said, his eyes still fixated on the floor. His voice had been so low that Bulma almost didn't hear him.

"Huh? Did he go back home?" Bulma asked; Koji shook his head. "Then where is he then?-Ah! Don't tell me he's gone off to challenge the Jinzouningen in his condition! That idiot; that stubborn-"

"No, not that...they got him..."

"What was that? I didn't understand you just then."

"I said...Gohan-san's dead!" Koji blurted, raising his head. For the first time since he got home, his eyes could be seen; tears were spilling down his face again.

Bulma definitely heard him clearly that time. She was silent for a long time. Then, slowly, she asked, "Dead?"

Koji nodded. "The Jinzouningen had attacked again, and Gohan went down to face them alone…and...they killed him!"

Bulma stood frozen in place as if she had just been turned into a statue, unable to comprehend what she had just heard. Then, her own eyes started burning and she began to cry as well. She stepped forward to embrace Koji and he hugged her back, and for a long time the two stood in the middle of the hall, crying together over the loss of another loved one.

* * *

**To Be Continued**


	4. The Last Hope

**Disclaimer: Must we go through this? Oh, okay, but we most of us already knew that Dragonball Z and its many characters is owned by Akira Toriyama, Toei, and other people with more money than me. I only own the original characters, which really won't be that many.**

**Chapter Three: The Last Hope**

* * *

"Finally, we're ready for take off!" Bulma enthused around the cigarette she was smoking. She smiled in self-achievement as she took a step back to admire the aircraft standing in front of her.

The Time Machine.

It was almost hard for her to believe that after years of research and planning and building, she was finally finished with her long-time project. Her dream. Building it had come with all kinds of difficulty. Because of the Jinzouningen, some of the parts she required had been hard to come by, forcing her to go back to the drawing board over and over again. However, in the end she had still managed to get what she needed. For the past three years she had dutifully worked away on it, always telling herself that she wasn't just fooling herself and that this really would work. Now finished with the actual machine itself, she was very confident that it would work and knew she hadn't been wasting her time. Plus, working on this project had helped to distract her mind from lingering on things she would rather not think about.

Like Gohan's death.

It was still hard for her to believe that it had happened. Any day now, it felt like he would make one of his surprise visits...but she knew it wouldn't be happening. Koji had taken his death pretty hard; Gohan had been more than just his mentor and friend, he had also been his brother; being a half-Saiyajin as Koji was, Gohan had been the only one in this whole chaotic world that had truly understood him. But now he was gone. While Gohan's death had been hard on her as well, she knew she had to remain strong for both herself and her son, so she kept her emotions under control whenever Koji was around, crying only at night when she was in her bedroom. Though she knew neither of them had taken Gohan's death as hard as Chichi. Her heart ached as she could still remember her friend's wail of pain and anguish when she had to make that painful trip over to her house and tell her what had happened in person.

Bulma suddenly looked at her invention with renewed determination. _*This is why I made the Time Machine in the first place. I never want another world to suffer like we've all been doing at the hands of the Artificial Humans. Nobody should live like this!*_

As for her son, Koji had coped with Gohan's death in his own way. Inspired more than ever to defeat the cyborgs, Koji had trained arduously. Whenever a news report streamed through the pirate broadcast about the Jinzouningen attacking somewhere else, knowing how impatient he is, she had always feared he would have enough and try to take them on all by himself like Gohan had. But remarkably, Koji would always tune it out and just go off to train; yet another thing he had inherited from his father was his work ethic, that was for sure. She could tell that he gotten strong, even more so than Gohan had been- at least, that's what she would like to believe. To be honest, she thought that no matter how much training he did it wouldn't be enough against the stupendous strength of Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou.

Now she just had to let Koji know it was almost time to put the plan into action. Then, as if her thoughts had summoned him...

"Mom, I'm home! I brought something better this time!"

Moments later, a now 17-year-old Koji came clambering down the steps into the lab, carrying a box of supplies on his left shoulder with one hand. While he still had a slight lankiness in his build, he was starting to fill out with more muscles, thanks to lots of training and his Saiyajin genes. He was now even taller than her.

"Great, you're home!" Bulma cheered, watching as her adopted son deposit the box of supplies he had brought home on the floor. "Guess what? The time machine's battery has finally finished charging up!"

"Oh?" Koji replied.

Slowly, Koji sauntered over to the Time Machine to take a closer look. He recalled how a long time his mother had been desiring to build it, with the plan being that he would be the one using it once it was finished. Privately, he was amazed that had completed it. Koji's eyes suddenly came to a halt on the middle of the machine where he noticed an emblem written across it.

"Mom, what does that mean right there?" Koji asked, rubbing his hand across the emblem. 'Hope 1'..."

Bulma's expression turned serious as she reached up to run a hand across the 'Hope 1' insignia on the side of the craft, almost reverently. She took a quick pull of her cigarette. Then, without taking her eyes off that logo, she replied, "Because that's what the time machine is. It's our hope...our last hope."

"Our last hope...?" Koji repeated, his red brows furrowing together. He suddenly remembered the last words he had heard Son Gohan speak before his death...words he had not spoke out loud ever since, instead keeping them buried in his heart as he aimed to get as strong as possible these last three years...

_*Koji, you are the last hope...*_

Bulma saw the look on her son's face. "Is something wrong, Koji?" she asked.

"Huh? Oh, it's nothing."

Bulma turned back to her creation. "I haven't been able to test the machine during the eight month charge up," she said, "and I'm pretty sure it'll work, but...It's just too bad that the old lab was destroyed. I could have made a much better Time Machine, however, at least now we can get the medicine to Son-kun in the past. That's where all of this started."

There was a long pause in the room. Then Koji spoke.

"Mother…is this trip really necessary?"

"What?" Bulma replied, not expecting such a question.

"I think I'm strong enough to beat the Jinzouningen now," Koji replied. "We don't need to go study them in the past!"

Bulma gave her son a scathing look. "Now you're being too naive. It's true that you've gotten astoundingly strong, but have you forgotten how Gohan was killed three years ago? I don't think you're that amazingly different than Gohan back then!"

"Well, you're wrong!" Koji argued, looking toward her, his expression a frightening mirror image of his late father whenever he scowled. "Mother, quite frankly this time I've got confidence! I can defeat them!"

Bulma made a disgusted sound in throat, unable to believe how arrogant Koji was being all of a sudden. Then she remembered who his father was and amended that thought- she could believe it! Her mouth moved to say something else when a sudden broadcast on the radio interrupted them.

"News Flash! The Jinzouningen have appeared again, and are attacking two cities this time! Locations are Parsley City and Bridge Town!"

"Oh, no!" Bulma said ruefully, feeling sorry for the people of those cities.

"Wait a minute," Koji said as something occurred to him. "He said that the Jinzouningen are attacking both Bridge Town and Parsley, which would mean that they're separated."

"Yeah. So?" Bulma asked.

"You know, Bridge Town's not that far from here…" Koji said, an unnaturally terrible smile sliding across his face.

Bulma saw the look on her son's face, and she immediately know what he was up to.

"You can't!" she told him. "Please, Koji, don't go over there. Using the Time Machine is the only way!"

"No!" Koji said adamantly. "Those people need me, and I'm not about to turn my back on them. Gohan wouldn't!"

His mind completely made up, Koji turned around and dashed out of the room. Bulma ran after him until she got to the doorway.

"NO! STOP!" she yelled. Unsurprisingly, she got no answer. Bulma huffed in frustration.

Meanwhile, Koji came dashing out of the house in a black Capsule Corp jacket, hooking his scabbard onto his back. He flew off into battle.

"All right, it's time!" he declared. "I'll avenge the deaths of Father, Gohan-san, and everyone else that was killed! Just you wait Jinzouningen!"

On the heel of those words, he transformed and moved faster.

* * *

The sight over in Bridge Town-well, what was left of it-was both devastating and heartrending. During these past years of terror, Bridge Town had been yet another city that had been fortunate enough to be overlooked by the Artificial Humans. And now just like almost every other civilization on the planet...it was nothing more than a large, bone-chilling gravesite for the citizens who had once inhabited the city. The only signs of life that could be discerned in the demolished city were the artificial culprits themselves- no, today it was only just one culprit, actually.

For the first time in their nearly twenty year-long rampage, Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou had decided to pursue more of the surviving humans separately. Actually, it had been Juuhachi-gou who had insisted on it. Juunana-gou wasn't for the idea at first, seeing as how they had always killed the humans and other flesh and blood creatures together. However, when Juuhachi-gou had made it out to be a new game between them like they usually did, telling him that first one who razed a city down to the ground would be the winner, that had somewhat assuaged him. But she still remembered that look of distrust she saw on his face before they went off in different directions.

Juuhachi-gou sighed at that memory, as she kicked over an upturned convertible like it was nothing more than a pebble. Her and her brother had once been so close, like twin siblings should, though even more so after they were forced to become what they were today and their hatred of the humans. But now where was a wedge between them...a wedge she had created due to her conflicting feelings about her son. She still hadn't been able to tell Juunana-gou about Koji being her and Vegeta's son. While a part of her really wanted to, she was always held back by...fear.

Scowling in vexation, she turned toward a partially standing half building and flung a pink-white energy beam at it, as if it had insulted her, blasting it into much debris. The Jinzouningen in her hated herself for feeling actual fear. She wasn't so supposed to feel fear! She was supposed to inspire fear into others! But no matter how much she didn't want to be, she was actually afraid of telling her brother about Koji. One reason was because she was afraid he would leave her if she told him she had conceived a child with a flesh and blood human, especially one who was supposed to be their enemy; although, not telling him about it may still make him leave her. And the other reason she was afraid to tell him...she was scared he would try to help stop her warring cyborg and human natures by taking care of her problem himself. Even though the android within her wanted very much to eliminate the boy, her human nature refused her to do so with equal strength.

That is if he was still even alive. Ever since that incident at Super World, Juuhachi-gou had always wondered if he had survived Juunana-gou's assault. At first, she believed he might after all when Gohan had reappeared before them days later, although she still had her doubts when she saw Gohan no longer had a left arm.

"DAMMIT!" she screamed furiously loud to dead city. Tendrils of red electricity engulfed her body and then shot out in every direction like energy bolts, destroying anything in her path. Just as soon as she stopped, she was abruptly hit by more forgotten memories...

_-The man's arm was like a steal band as he wrapped it around her waist, pulling her close to him. He crushed his lips against hers, his tongue easily sliding into her mouth to join hers in a passionate dance._

_-She watched as her unexpected lover put back on his clothes. When he was fully clothed again, he walked off without so much as saying one word or barely a glance back at her, leaving her naked and alone on the ground._

When the last memory had finally ended, Juuhachi-gou had to brace herself against a wall, breathing in exertion. Her heart was actually racing.

"When will all this end?" she asked herself aloud. She didn't really expect an answer.

"It all ends here, _Mother_!" came the unexpected response.

Juuhachi-gou's pale eyes broadened. Looking up, she watched with a strange mingle of shock, joy, dread, and anger as Koji alighted on the ruined ground not too far from her, glowering pure hatred towards her. A merciless grin, one that just looked so wrong on him, split his handsome face in half.

"Aren't I the lucky one? Just the machine I was hoping to run into," Koji said, his voice low, cold, and intense at the same time.

For a long moment, she just gawped at him. She hadn't seen her son in four years, wondering for many days and nights if he was even still alive. So to see him not only appear in front of her at all, but as nearly a grown man left her absolutely stunned. Shaking her head, Juuhachi-gou managed to get a hold of herself, and she fixed her obstinate son with a scowl of her own.

"What do you want?" she demanded, although she already knew what the answer was going to be.

"Well, _Mother_," Koji spat, "I was hoping you and me could finally have a heart-to-heart I've always wanted. But since you have no heart, I'll let my fists and my sword do the talking for me!"

His words sparked anger within Juuhachi-gou.

"Stupid boy! Wake up!" she snapped. "Last time wasn't enough? When is it going to get through to you that you are no match against us? We are far superior to you in every way imaginable. You will never be able to beat us. No matter how many times you face us, you will always lose. Now, I'm going to give you the chance to just walk away, and I'd advised you to take it." Looking away, she said, "Don't be an idiot...like your Father and Gohan."

At the horrible reminder that the only friend he'd ever known and the father he never got to know had been taken away from him, Koji's blood boiled with red rage.

"How dare you! I'll never forgive you for taking them away from me!" he barked, his Super Saiyajin aura blazing fiercely around him now. The furious teenager lunged across the gap between him and his mother.

As he swiftly approached, Juuhachi-gou shook her head. "Fool. You no common sense whatsoever. Well, as your mother, I'll just have to beat some into you."

Suiting words to action, she leapt up to meet him head on. Right away, Koji's right fist rocketed out towards Juuhachi-gou for a cross, but Juuhachi-gou easily blocked it and lashed out with a wicked punch of her own, driving her fist into the side of his face. Koji let out a low grunt as he went careening backwards towards the ground, though he managed to flip himself over and land on his feet. Juuhachi-gou continued onward towards him. Briskly, Koji moved his hands around in intricate patterns and unleashed a large blue-white ki beam. Juuhachi-gou dematerialized to dodge it and rematerialized afterwards. She disappeared once more when he fired another ki blast at her, then rematerialized right before him. With a kiai shout, Koji reared his fist back and went for another punch. Juuhachi-gou caught his fist, and then his other hand when he tried to hit her from the left side.

"Just give up while you still can!" Juuhachi-gou growled at him. She released his right hand to punch him backwards into a pile of rubble. Koji quickly exploded out of the debris, unsheathing his sword as he dove back in at her.

"I don't care if you did give me life, I won't stop until I see you dead!" he bellowed angrily. He swung his sword at her repeatedly, and each time he missed her. "You're not my mother anyway! No real mother would put their child through such much pain!"

Juuhachi-gou gasped as his spiteful words struck something with in her. And another memory came...

_The young woman flew hastily through the air, but not as fast as she really could go due to her tiny passenger. In her arms she carried her baby son, bound adequately in a soft, white blanket to keep him warm. As she gazed down at him, she smiled when she saw him grinning; he was obviously enjoying himself. _

_*Don't worry little one. I might not be able to get away from this, but I'm going to make sure you do," she promised. "I'm going to take you where you'll be safe...*_

Just as she was returning back to the here and now, Juuhachi-gou leaped back as quickly as she could to avoid Koji's advancing blade. While it didn't touch her body, she did lose a few strands of her hair.

"My hair!" Juuhachi-gou gasped in horror and anger.

With a savage war cry, Koji aimed to drive his sword through his unwanted birth mother. He was halfway there, when there was suddenly a jolt. Shock slacked Koji's features. On the other end of his sword, and standing between a stunned looking Juuhachi-gou, was Juunana-gou, staring back up at the half-Saiyajin in amusement. He was still holding the end of Koji's sword.

"Well, if isn't Red," Juunana-gou said, grinning.

"J-Juunana-gou? What are you doing here?" Juuhachi-gou asked. Though secretly, there was a part of her that was relieved to see him there.

Juunana-gou looked back at his sister. "From now on, we stick to staying together; obviously you're not ready to be on your own. Especially when you're fighting against this boy," he said. Juuhachi-gou didn't miss the disdain she heard in his voice.

With a growl, Koji tugged his sword free and took a swing at Juunana-gou. Juunana-gou did a backflip to avoid the sword this time, then right after used his momentum to smoothly spin himself around and lunged back at the half-Saiyajin, catching him in the chin with a vicious kick. Grinning nastily, Juunana-gou followed up with a sharp roundhouse kick to the head, unknowingly sending his own nephew crashing into some rubble.

"Juunana-gou, wait!" Juuhachi-gou called, taking an uncertain step forward.

"No, stay back!" he barked at her. "I don't know what it is, because you're so damn stubborn that you won't even confide in your own brother about whatever it is you're hiding, but something about this boy makes you too unfocused. He's mine!"

Right after that, Juunana-gou thrust his right hand out. He sent a couple of ki blasts after him, watching with a pleased expression as the spot exploded.

"That's the end of him," he said haughtily. He never noticed the look of fear on his sister's face behind him.

In the next instant, Juunana had received quite a shock, when Koji had erupted out of the smoke and made a beeline towards him. Koji caught his uncle in the face with a wicked punch, a roundhouse kick to his right shoulder, before finally driving his fist as hard as he could into his abdomen, sending Juunana-gou crashing into one of the very few buildings still standing. Rising into the air, Koji gathered power in both hands and flung it at the building, watching satisfactorily as it went up in smoke and fire. Koji grinned triumphantly, his face resembling an uncanny mix of his father and uncle.

"Yatta! I did it!" he cheered.

Promptly, the smile faded, when the smoke cleared Juunana-gou stood back up to his feet, unscathed.

"Hey, what exactly did you do?" Juunana-gou asked sneeringly. "Could you let me in on it?"

With another growl, Koji unleashed a volley of ki blasts on the cyborg. He was panting now, but he hoped that had been to-oh, no! Down below, an unfazed Juunana-gou walked back into view.

Koji could only stare. _"What am I up against? This is crazy!" _

Over where she had been left, momentarily forgotten, Juuhachi-gou watched the battle between her brother and her son, feeling torn. A part of her was delighting in watching her brother make this flesh-and-blood creature realize that he stands no chance whatsoever against them...but another part of her was afraid that if this continued on, her son would end up getting hurt. Or even worse…

Juunana-gou crooked a finger the teenager invitingly. Snarling, Koji unleashed an even larger barrage of ki blasts on the Jinzouningen. Once again, Juunana-gou never tried to move, as ki blasts rained down all around him, chewing and wrecking the ground even more with explosions. After that, Koji couldn't even marshal up enough ki to stay up in the air. He dropped to his knees on the ground, heavily fatigued.

"I'm really spent..." he panted. "I shouldn't have put so much into that last attack."

"Hey, don't fall out on me just yet, kid," Juunana-gou said, charging. "The fun's just starting!

Smirking, Juunana-gou smashed his fist against Koji's face, sending him crashing inside the building behind him. Koji rolled to a stop when he bumped into something. Looking up, his eyes widened when he saw his uncle staring down at him in cold amusement. For the next several minutes, Juunana-gou alternately taunted and abused the teenager. Because of this, the cold hard truth really hit Koji in the face: he was still nowhere near strong enough to beat the Jinzouningen. He couldn't even beat one of them alone. His adopted mother had been right. He tried to flee from him, but no matter wherever he went, Juunana-gou would always be there to greet him with another harsh punch or kick.

_*If I had listen to Bulma-kaasan, I wouldn't be in this mess right now!*_ Koji managed to think self-loathingly.

Some time later, Koji could be seen smashing through the side of the building and hitting the hard terrain with a painful-sounding thud near a river. He didn't move. A moment later, Juunana-gou touched down a few feet away. Juunana-gou looked down in cold satisfaction at his handwork.

"Juunana-gou!" Juuhachi-gou finally spoke up, approaching. She had seen more than enough. If she didn't do something, that brother of hers really would kill that idiot offspring of hers. She summarily ignored the voice that asked what was wrong with that. "Stop it, already. Can't you see that he's done?"

Juunana-gou regarded his sister, and then studied Koji. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Let's go."

Just as he was about to turn around to leave...he suddenly heard a groan behind them. Quickly looking down, they saw Koji struggling back up to his feet. The twins stared in surprise.

"Incredible. After all of that, you still have some life left in you." Juunana-gou sounded genuinely halfway impressed. "You're interesting say the least, kid. A lot more than that Vegeta guy, or Son Gohan had been. While I enjoyed myself in those fights, it seemed like just as the fun really began, I end up killing them."

Koji's blue-green eyes broadened at the statement.

"You...were the one who killed my father and Gohan?" he asked slowly.

"Eh? Vegeta was your father?" Juunana-gou asked, looking stunned. He laughed. "No wonder I always thought you two favored each other. But yes, it was me who killed Vegeta and Gohan. Don't worry, though, you'll be joining them soon enough."

Koji was fixed to the spot on the ground where he stood, his brain still trying to comprehend what he just heard. It was Juunana-gou that had killed his father and his friend- master?...Juuhachi-gou had nothing to do it with?

Juuhachi-gou was still watching silently, wondering how her son would react to finding out that it was Juunana-gou who had killed Vegeta and Gohan. Naturally, it wasn't good, as Koji's face shifted from shock to fury. Screaming, Koji flew back in at the dark-haired man. Grinning, Juunana-gou simply extended out his right index finger and fired a thin beam of ki at his nephew, sending Koji's battered form flying all the way over to the other side of the river. Juunana-gou followed, touching down beside the half-Saiyajin. Juunana-gou used his right foot to lift Koji's head up so they could see his face, which was covered in blood and bruises.

"Oops, looks like I used too much force again," Juunana-gou laughed. He's really dead now.

Landing behind them, Juuhachi-gou quietly gasped at his statement.

But then, to her and her brother's shock, Koji started to move again.

"This brat really is tough," Juunana-gou said.

"I don't believe it," Juuhachi-gou said in shock. _*He's still trying to move after all of that? Remarkable.*_

"Why?" Koji breathed out. Through his half-lidded eyes, he looked sidelong and saw that Juuhachi-gou had arrived. "Why are you two...doing this?"

"Well, if you must know so badly," Juunana-gou said, smirking. "Dr. Gero created the two of us for world domination, but we don't care about any of that."

"It's just that whenever we see any of you humans, it angers us because we used to be humans ourselves," Juuhachi-gou explained. "Since we can never be like you again, we wanted to make sure there are no humans left all."

Koji stared up at the pair in shock and growing fury. That's why they were doing this? That's why his father, Gohan, the other Z-Senshi, and all those innocent people had to die?

"That's why you are doing this?" Koji demanded, new strength and rage flowing through him. He suddenly found that he could stand again. "You monsters! That's why you're doing this? How could you? All those people…All those children. What makes this even worse...is that my own Mother had a hand in all of this!"

"Mother?" Juunana-gou echoed, staring at the half-Saiyajin as if he had lost his mind. He then laughed as if he'd just heard the funniest joke. "Did you hear that, Juuhachi-gou? He called you his _Mother_. Ain't that a laugh? I think I hit him in the head too many times."

When Juunana-gou turned to his sister, he expected her to be laughing about this as well. Instead, however, he found her frowning back at Koji, who was still glaring utter death and revulsion at her underneath his bruises. At first, he didn't think anything of it. Then, slowly, he stopped laughing when he suddenly noticed something a bit disturbing- a bit of a similarity between Juuhachi-gou and the boy. His eyes drew down in a frown as he started to look back and forth from his sister to the boy and back again, wondering what was going on here.

First the strange boy calls her his Mother, and now he's seeing a similarity between them? Was his enhanced eyesight starting to malfunction? Just as he was thinking that, Juunana-gou suddenly remembered Juuhachi-gou's strange behavior after they came across Koji the first time. He was recalling how she would often appear lost in thought at times, how she had become so secretive and would snap at him every time he tried to ask her what she was hiding, and her hesitation at killing the boy that day when they fought him and Gohan at the amusement park. Realization then fully hit the male Jinzouningen.

"He's...your son!?" Juunana-gou asked slowly, gawping at his twin sister.

Juuhachi-gou didn't meet his eyes.

"When did this happen?" Juunana-gou demanded. "Why haven't told me about this before?"

"She can tell you about it while you both are in Hell!" Koji said. Rising up with surprising quickness despite his injuries, he lunged at his mother and uncle again.

"I've had enough of you!" Juunana-gou said spitefully. Dropping low, he swept Koji's feet out from under him and then sent him smashing into the hard packed earth with a double axe handle across his back. Nastily, he pressed down on the side of Koji's head with his right foot, grinding his shoe against his skull. Unable to take the abuse any longer, Koji slipped out of Super Saiyajin form, his hair turning back to red. The sight of him only made Juunana-gou's distaste towards him grow. He then looked deliberately towards his sister.

"Neesan, you have a choice to make," he told her, looking more serious at that moment than his sister had ever seen him. "Where does you allegiance lay? With me, your twin brother-the only one in this entire universe that really cares about you? Or your filthy human spawn?"

Juuhachi-gou's mouth opened as if she was about to say something, but then it quickly closed like a fish, as she really took her brother's ultimatum into consideration. For a long moment, her expression became too dark to read. Then they cleared, full of cold malice.

"Remove your foot off his head..." she told him. "Since I am the one who brought him into this world… then I should be the one to take him out."

Juunana-gou looked appeased. "Good," he said, as he took his foot off Koji's skull. "I knew you would make the right choice. We are family, after all"

Ignoring him, Juuhachi-gou stepped between her brother and the half-unconscious Koji. As she paused for a space of a minute, she gazed down at her son, feeling torn as she had on the day she had to give him up. She shook her head- this had to be done! Raising her hands towards the sky, Juuhachi-gou's voice raised several octaves as she charged up her power. With a final scream, she launched the attack on her son. Koji screamed in pain, his whole world becoming agony as everything spun around him in a sickening, dizzying rate until he finally loss consciousness.

* * *

Koji was having that old dream again. It was the same one where he tried to run as fast as he could to catch up to his father, who always had his back turned to him and facing forward; if he could catch up to him, then he could finally see what his father's face looked like- that was what he believed every time he had the dream. As Koji grew stronger over the years, whenever he had that dream the gap had started to close, and was able to make out his father's features more and more; like his stiff, upswept black hair and the blue bodysuit he wore. But something was wrong here. As he kept trying to run towards his father, his father kept moving further and further away.

"Father! Wait for me!" he called.

Just then, when he took another step forward, the ground gave away underneath him to a giant cavity. The teenager plummeted uncontrollably into it, screaming-

Koji immediately woke up. He tried to sit up, but a spike of pain through his body stopped him.

"Koji!" said a very recognizable voice, full of relief.

"M-Mother?" Looking sidelong, he saw Bulma draw up beside him, looking very relieved. At that moment, Koji thought he had never been glad to see her face as he was now. Glancing around the room, Koji was surprised to see that he was lying in what looked like a hospital room. But...how was that possible? He should be dead! As he became fully aware of himself, he fully remembered Juuhachi-gou charging up an energy blast that would surely do him in, and then the world becoming pain when it hit. So how did he get back here?

Abruptly, to his surprise, his foster mother's face shifted from abatement to anger.

"Well, I hope this has taught you a lesson!" Bulma scolded, at the same time carefully and gently bringing him back down on the bed. "Really, trying to fight them all alone no matter what; you're just as bad as that father of yours...or that Yamucha! Or Gohan...!" Almost immediately after she spoke those harsh words, Bulma's angry countenance shattered and tears slipped from her eyes.

Koji's eyes widened. Except for that time they cried together over the death of Gohan, he usually never saw his mother cry. She might be just an ordinary human, but she was surprisingly strong and hardy. Just like the Jinzouningen, allowing yourself to be fooled by Bulma Briefs' outward appearance was a big mistake. If one wanted proof, Koji would just direct them to that wealthy jerk who came to their house once trying to bribe Bulma into using the Time Machine for his own benefits instead of the whole planet as she intended once she was finished. Bulma had retorted his offer by impressively tossing him out of the house through the window, chasing him off with some threatening words afterwards. However, to see her cry now, the impact of just how much he had worried her with his foolish actions.

_*I really am too naive,* _he realized, frowning. A moment later, he asked, "Kaasan? How did I get be here?"

"I don't know," Bulma answered, shaking her head while rubbing the tears from her eyes. "Five days ago, I received a phone call from this hospital that you had been found outside on their doorstep pretty beat-up, though luckily you were just unconscious. When I first got the call, for a split-second, I thought had lost someone else I cared about, but thank Kami-sama that wasn't the case! I quickly got you to the hospital!" She took her right hand to gently brush the bangs out of his face, which only fell back into place after she did so.

Normally, Koji might have been surprised to learn he had been sleeping for five days, but what was on his mind was the mystery of who brought him to this hospital. Was he somehow able to drag himself there, knocked on the door before blacking out again, and that's why he couldn't remember? He believed that had to be the only conclusion. After all, no one else could have possibly brought him there...Could they?

A sudden thought started to worm its way into his head. Koji fiercely dismissed it, not even giving it a chance to really take form.

"You were right, Kaasan," he said after a pause, looking up at the ceiling. "I never should have tried to face the cyborgs on my own. The gap between us is still huge...It's nothing short of a miracle that I'm even alive now."

Bulma remained silent, sensing he had more to say.

"K-Kaasan...is he really that great- Son Goku-san?" Koji asked. He turned to look Bulma directly in the eye. "If I take him the medicine...do you really think he can make that much of a difference against the Jinzouningen?"

"Oh, absolutely!" Bulma said without hesitation, elated that her son wanted to go through with the plan after all. "Son-kun really is an amazing man! Whenever the world was in trouble, he always found some way to save the day in the end, no matter how impossible it seemed...He just has this incredible aura about him that makes you feel like everything would turn out all right whenever he was around. Once you meet him for yourself, you'll understand."

Son Goku. For as long as he could remember, both his mother and Gohan had always told him of Goku's legendary strength. All this time, he had personally thought that maybe they had been exaggerating. While he could tell from the picture of the late Saiyajin that he was strong, Koji had believed that this Goku person just couldn't be stronger than Gohan or even his late father, no matter what Gohan or Bulma told him otherwise. But now that using the Time Machine to give Goku the medicine to combat that heart disease that would lead to his death, Koji found himself wanting to believe in this Son Goku. He wanted to believe in him as much as mother does...as much as his master had.

"Mother, do you think I'll finally get to meet father as well?" Koji suddenly asked, smiling. He missed the crease in Bulma's brow at the mention of the deceased Saiyajin Prince.

"Yes...but I warn you, don't expect too much from him. But for right now, worry about getting yourself healed up, and then we'll take the medicine to Son-kun, okay?"

Koji nodded. "Okay."

The young warrior smiled, found himself looking forward to going to the Past already.

_*At last, Father, I'll get to see your face," _he thought. His expression then turned serious. _*And Son Goku-san...I hope everyone is right about you. Forgive me, Gohan-san. I really don't have what it takes to save this world by myself..."_

* * *

A month later, Bulma and a more than fully healed Koji stood outside the house under a beautiful, blue sky. Standing beside them was the Time Machine itself, ready to go.

"You be careful back there, son," Bulma was telling him

Koji gave her an assuring smile and nodded. "Yes!"

Mother and son then shared a hug goodbye. It was a long moment before they pulled apart.

"I'm going, Kaasan!" Koji said determinedly.

"I'm counting on you, Koji!" Bulma replied, smiling as she clenched her right fist resolutely.

Within moments, Koji was strapping himself to the seat, now completely secured within the timecraft. He started up the machine; the engine emitted a soft whine, proceeded by the thrusters kicking on, and soon the craft began to slowly rise off the ground. Looking out the window, he smiled down at his mother and waved. Bulma waved back as well. The timecraft was now rising higher and higher into the air until he could no longer see Bulma back on the ground. In the next instant, he had vanished with the Time Machine within the temporal mists.

"There he goes..." Bulma murmured. She then smiled. "But I won't worry, because I know he'll be in good hands. Watch over him, Son-kun."

* * *

**To Be Continued**


	5. Meeting Father

**Disclaimer: Must we go through this? Oh, okay, but we most of us already knew that Dragonball Z and its many characters is owned by Akira Toriyama, Toei, and other people with more money than me. I only own the original characters, which really won't be that many.**

**Author's Note: Youbo means "adopted mother".  
**

**Chapter Four: Meeting Father**

* * *

The jump into the time stream had whipped up a sudden flare of light all around Koji, momentarily dazzling him. When a few moments had passed, the radiance dropped down to a tolerable level and the young warrior reopened his eyes. He gasped and gaped at the view that greeted him, immediately declaring it to be the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. Surrounding him on all sides was an array of brilliant, multicolored lights, joined at the tips to form a shimmering archway that seemed to stretch onward into infinity.

"T-this is...amazing!" he stammered in awe.

Even though he knew it was happening, Koji still couldn't believe that he was actually going back in time. It was like something completely out of a science fiction movie. He still remembered back when the time machine had been in the early planning stages, and seemed like nothing more than a distant dream at the time. But no longer was time traveling a dream, it was now a reality. Bulma-kaasan really was a genius!

Son Goku...As far back as he could remember, he had always been told stories of what an amazing warrior Gohan's father had been, though hardly believed them. After realizing just how fearsome the strength of the Artificial Humans really were, he had been forced to re-evaluate his opinion of the Saiyajin, and was now hoping that all those stories had been true. Abruptly, he recalled his conversation with his adopted mother the day he recovered from his battle with the Jinzouningen-

_"K-Kaasan...is he really that great- Son Goku-san?" Koji asked. He turned to look Bulma directly in the eye. "If I take him the medicine...do you really think he can make that much of a difference against the Jinzouningen?" _

_"Oh, absolutely!" Bulma said without hesitation, elated that her son wanted to go through with the plan after all. "Son-kun really is an amazing man! Whenever the world was in trouble, he always found some way to save the day in the end, no matter how impossible it seemed...He just has this incredible aura about him that makes you feel like everything would turn out all right whenever he was around. Once you meet him for yourself, you'll understand." _

As the memory faded, that characteristic furrow between his eyes settled back into place.

"Let's see just how awesome you really are, Son Goku-san," he murmured.

Pushing on the throttle forward, Koji put on a burst of speed in the timecraft. In the next instant, Koji was forced to close his eyes as the world around him once again exploded in light. Sensing that it was okay to look again, he reopened his eyes-

-and was greeted by a wide, blue sky, filled with wispy, white clouds, and out the corner of his eye he could see the sun shining.

Koji blinked. Taking a look over the side, he became stunned all over again. Below him could only be what West City had looked like before the Jinzouningen showed up- the same way he saw it in his dreams. It didn't have the dismal and desolate look that the West City from his own time had had. This city looked so...so full of life and hope! Even from up there he could see cars stuck in traffic. Gazing down, he saw the appearance of his house in this era, unmarred and gleaming in the sunlight. He could even make out the same tree that was outside his own room, only this one wasn't snapped in half.

"I'm here..." he breathed in amazement."I'm really here in the Past...where Gohan-san, Father, and all the other warriors are still alive."

Koji felt like a small child who'd just opened up a great present on Christmas morning. He wanted to go down to his house and see what everyone in this timeline was like...but then he remembered the real reason why he was there, and look of cold focus settled on his features. Glancing down at the clock Bulma had installed in the machine, he realized he had better get a move on it if he wanted to get to his destination in time. Koji took another glance down at his house.

_*Maybe some other time,* _he thought ruefully. On that, his expression became serious again and he flew off.

Now it's time to get down to the business. His adopted mother programmed the Time Machine to bring him back to exact moment before Furiza arrived on the planet and Goku returned from space after a year-long absence. From what he had been told, Goku made it back to Earth shortly after Furiza landed, transformed into a Super Saiyajin, and killed Furiza once and for all. However, following that battle, Goku had shortly contracted the heart virus and it began to slowly take over before becoming dangerously fatal over time.

A short while later, he was a good distance away from any civilization, and precipices and other rock formations started to rise into view. He had made it! Koji spotted a cliff with a couple of boulders atop of it and guided the time machine towards it, knowing it would make for good cover. He landed the time machine down behind one of the rocks. Unbuckling himself, he opened the lid and jumped out. He then encapsulated the time machine, reaching into his right pocket, he pulled out a container (already filled by Bulma with provision capsules in case Koji found himself in trouble), deposited it inside, and put the container back inside his pocket.

Then Koji froze in place, his blue eyes widening as he finally became aware of the group of evil kis nearby beyond some cliffs; two of them were noticeably much larger than the rest.

"Could it be...?" he wondered. Not wasting time, Koji rocketed away towards the cliffs. Within a few moments, the half-Saiyajin had arrived at the source of perturbation. He grimaced at what he found.

Standing up on spider-like legs in the middle of the wasteland was a grand, ominous spaceship. Amassed outside the spaceship were a group of aliens in matching armor, although two of them were clearly set apart from the others. They both had an air of authority and power about them, and that's when Koji realized that they were the two huge kis he felt. Interesting enough, he sensed that the shorter one was slightly stronger than the large alien wearing a cape.

_*So, he must be Furiza,* _Koji mused. He looked agitated. _*But then...where is Son Goku-san? Shouldn't he be here now? Kaasan said he arrived shortly after Furiza did.* _

Worried, Koji searched for Goku's ki. Being the only Super Saiyajin on this planet at this point, Koji knew that Goku should have the highest ki on this planet. Koji's visage lit up in shock as he found it. Even though he could tell his power was at rest, Koji could still sense that it was incredible. However, what had really stunned him so was the fact that he didn't sense the Saiyajin's ki on the planet, but still somewhere in space, coming towards this planet fast. That's right! He was told that Goku's arrival time wouldn't be for another three hours.

And atop of that, to the left, Koji could sense two formidable kis approaching, along with several smaller ones.

_*That must be the other Warriors coming this way!* _he realized. That made him realize that Son Gohan was also on his way there, who was supposed to be a kid in this era, and his father as well.

Koji felt a surge of nervous excitement run through him. Even though Bulma had told him not to come into contact with his father and the others, wanting to avoid any accidental changes in history, but it seemed like he might have to after all. Another thing, if Goku was still out in space, then it meant that his father and the other Warriors were the only ones who could defend the planet from Furiza. But the problem is, none of them were strong enough to do so. Only a Super Saiyajin could stand up to the space warlord...

Just as soon as that thought left his mind, Koji realized what he had to do. Turning, he glared down at the invaders. Oh well, history was going to already be in danger of changing just by him meeting his father and the other fighters of this time. Plus, if he just stood there and allowed Furiza to destroy the planet, then he wouldn't be able to give the medicine to Goku.

"All right, let's just see if this Furiza is as bad as the stories made him out to be," Koji said, a dangerous smirk curling his mouth.

* * *

Furiza's attempt at vengeance on Son Goku was about to end in abrupt failure. Teamed up with his father, King Cold, the warlord had been very overconfident in thinking that there was no way even a Super Saiyajin could beat them. Then again, with his the power increased he had gained from his cybernetic replacements for his missing limbs, Furiza had thought he was definitely strong enough to beat that cursed monkey all by himself this time. His plan was to kill all of the Earthlings before Goku made it home in the next three hours- especially his family and friends. Then when Goku did finally arrive, he would greet the Saiyajin with all the corpses of the Earthlings, and catch him off guard while he was grieving over the lost of his loved ones, striking before he could even transform.

However, just as Furiiza had given the order to his troops to begin killing the Earthlings, a young man touched down in front of them before they could go anywhere. Furiza, King Cold, and their troops blinked at the man in puzzlement. He was crimson-haired with blue eyes, dressed in a red jacket with black pants and a matching black shirt underneath the jacket: the Capsule Corporation logo was emblazoned on the left arm. While he had never seen the boy before in his life, the cold look he fixed them with vaguely reminded Furiza of a certain Saiyajin Prince.

"What do you want, Earthling?" Furiza asked.

"I'm here to kill you," Koji answered tersely.

Father, son, and their soldiers stared back in equal disbelief.

"You're here to kill us?" Furiza repeated. He and his father chuckled mockingly. "Ha! Boy, you have some nerve to make such a declaration like that to me. You have no idea who you're up against."

"Oh, I know you, all right," Koji countered. He smirked superiorly at the look of surprise on the villain's face. "You are Furiza, aren't you? There's no need to be so surprised. I know everything about you."

"Hmph. To think that my name is known even on a planet as far removed as this one," Furiza replied. "Unfortunately for you, kid, you apparently haven't heard that I'm the most powerful being in the universe."

"What I do know is that you're going to die here today."

The amusement was gone from the half-mechanized warlord's face now, as he glared dangerously at the teenager, growling through gritted teeth. Koji stared back at him unflinchingly, showing no intimidation in the slightest. Then, slowly, remarkably, Furiiza calmed down. He smirked.

"Such big words from a small fry," he said. He then turned to one of his warriors behind him. "You, take care of him!"

"Yes!"

"The rest of you go finish off the other Earthlings," Furiza commanded.

"Yes" The other shoulders chorused. Just as they were about to head out as ordered-

"Hey, you guys!" Koji called. The soldiers paused and turned to him at the same time. "You're better off not taking such futile actions. Or else you'll be dying here too."

"Bastard! You're finished!" retorted one soldiers who could pass for an Earth human.

"Wait!" called the green-scaled soldier Furiiza had ordered to kill the teenager. "He's all mine."

Stepping forward, he tapped the button on the side of his scouter to get a read on the brave fighter's power. Numbers and letters of alien origin scrolled across the red lens for a couple of moments. When they stopped, the soldier simpered sneeringly at Koji.

"Humph. This worthless piece of trash only has a battle power of 5!" he mocked. "This will hurt a bit, but be patient. It'll be over quickly!"

Koji remained where he was, even as the unnamed soldier aimed a hi-tech gun on him. The soldier fired, and Koji easily deflected the energy blast with one hand, sending it flying behind him against the top of a precipice, exploding on contact. The soldier looked momentarily stunned. Then, he became enraged and started firing off three more energy blasts. Koji deflected them with as much effort as the last one, sending them somewhere behind him to explode harmlessly.

"B-b-but how?" the alien demanded, gawping at Koji in shock.

Koji brushed his bangs out of his face, then he fixed the alien with a deadly smile, making him jump. Before the alien could even register the youth move, Koji sped across the gap between them and uppercutted him in the chin, sending the alien slamming back hard into one of the spider-like legs of King Cold's spaceship. The soldier didn't move.

Furiza stared down at his father's fallen lackey. Then he looked around at Koji in cold amusement, chuckling.

"Why you rotten punk!" growled one of the other soldiers.

He and the other soldiers lunged together, vengeance on their minds. Pulling his sword out, Koji charged back at them. In the next instant, several arcs of light sliced through the air around the soldiers. Koji touched back down on the ground, still holding his sword. Meanwhile, behind him the soldiers stood frozen in place, staring blankly into the sky. When Koji sheathed his sword, as if on cue, each of the soldiers fell to the ground. Well, all except for the one. He gawped at Koji in stunned horror, then his scouter split in half, proceeded by the top half of his fighting jacket falling of his body. Realizing he was up against something he wasn't strong enough to face, the alien started to back up, then...

...his body stiffened up. Looking down, he saw the hand impaled through the center of his body, covered in blood. The grunt looked around at the culprit in sheer disbelief.

"Furiiza-sama...But why?" he wanted to know.

The grunt would never find out. For as soon as Furiza removed his hand just as suddenly as he had put it here, he dropped to the ground, dying at once.

"Ho, ho, ho. He's not bad," King Cold remarked, sounding really impressed.

Furiza laughed. "For an Earthling, anyhow."

"You're next!" Koji said with glacial certainty.

"What admirable courage!" King Cold said casually. "Did you hear him, Furiza? I think he's going to try and kill us next."

"This brat really should learn his place," Furiza said. "How about I teach you an important lesson, kid? Those who are only half as strong as they thought to be are the ones who die soonest."

"Listen and listen well," Koji told him seriously. "I will kill you both instantly!"

"What did you say!?" Furiza demanded, his hand shaking in a fist.

"Come at me with everything you have, right from the start," Koji warned him. "I won't go as easy on you as Son Goku did."

Furiza half-growled, half-gasped in response at the mention of his hated enemy.

"Son Goku?" King Cold repeated.

"That's the name of the Super Saiyajin, Papa," Furiza explained patiently.

"Hm," King Cold replied.

Furiza's gaze slid back onto Koji. "I see now, you're one of his friends."

"I've never met him," Koji admitted. "I only know of him."

"You only know of him?"

"You just got through finished saying," Koji began, "that you were going to kill off all the Earthlings here, before the Super Saiyajin arrive, in order to mortify him."

"That's exactly what I said," Furiza agreed, his tone neutral. "You're going to be one of them." While he seemed calm and composed on the outside, underneath he was seething with fury of the audacity of some human to talk down to him the way this boy had been doing. He would enjoy annihilating him. "Of course, since you've killed all my men, it means that I, Furiza-sama, will have to take matters into my own hands now."

Koji smirked. "You miscalculated."

"What do you mean? I can purge the earth of vermin like you in the blink of an eye."

"No...You're wrong!" Koji declared, his tone much sharper this time. "See, Son Goku is not the only Super Saiyajin. I'm one of them, too!"

Both father and son gawped in shock.

"What!?" Furiza gasped. Then, in the next moment, the laughter stopped when the wind suddenly picked up tremendously, sending rock fragments blowing on them. However, when Furiza and King Cold looked over at Koji, the two were shocked to see that the wind was actually coming from him...as well as a strange, white glow.

"No! It can't be!" Furiza shouted in consternation.

"What is this?" King Cold wanted to know.

An answer came in the form of a howl from Koji, his power sending the corpses that had once been King Cold's squadron scattering away, and making the earth tremble, the ground fissuring under his feet. Koji's hair was now standing upward off his head, and peals of gold lightning ran through his aura. As Furiza gaped at him in horror, he wasn't seeing him, he was seeing Goku go through the same transformation back on old Planet Nameksei. Then, right in front of Furiza's and King Cold's eyes, gold fire erupted from the teenager, flushing his hair gold-white and turning his eyes blue-green.

King Cold looked down at his son narrowly when he saw him backing away, his expression twisted in genuine fear. He looked back at Koji.

"So, this is the Super Saiyajin?" he said in wonder.

Furiza was shaking with fear now.

"T-those eyes," he stammered frightfully, remembering those same cold, hard turquoise eyes on Goku when he had transformed. "They have...the same eyes!"

"Furiza, prepare yourself!" Koji shouted.

"Burn in hell!" Furiza bellowed. Out of panic and rage, he fired a ki blast, hitting the Super Saiyajin on target. A resultant explosion followed.

Beside his father, Furiza looked smugly triumphant. He was ashamed of himself for how cowardly he'd just been acting, when it didn't really take much to destroy the mysterious boy. He knew he was just all talk! Bah! Some Super Saiyajin!

"You did it, son," King Cold said in a congratulatory tone. "Looks as though he was no match for us after all."

"I got in some good exercise before Son Goku showed up," Furiza remarked.

However, as they conversed down below, behind them, high atop of a cliff, Koji regarded them stonily. It was time! Moving his hands in elaborate patterns, he brought them forward, side-by-side.

"Furiza!" he yelled.

"Huh?" Furiiza cried in shock, as he and King Cold turned around. As soon as he did, Koji fired off his attack. Both father and son quickly leaped into the air to avoid the ki blast.

This move would prove to be Furiza's downfall.

"When I get my hands on-huh?" Furiiza broke off in his bow, when he suddenly sensed someone behind him.

Looking around, he saw Koji barrelling out of the sky towards him, sword held over his head. Furiza's body became rooted in midair; he knew he should get away, but his mind wouldn't listen to him. In the next moment, Koji slashed his sword on him. Furiza's view of his foe started to slowly start to split into two directions, upward and downward, as the warlord had been slice in half.

"Furiza!" King Cold cried, horrified.

Koji then slashed at Furiiza several more times, hacking him up into many pieces. Thrusting his free hand forward and folding the thumb back, he fired a ki blast at the remains of the once feared and Lord Furiiza-sama, vaporizing them instantly.

King Cold shot Koji a look of bloody murder; his usual composure completely gone. Letting out a shout of rage, he flew towards Koji in cold vengeance. Even as he heard King Cold swiftly approaching him from behind, Koji didn't even turn around and instead sheathed his sword. He had just gotten arms length of Koji, when the teenager surprised him by extending his arm out behind him and firing a ki blast at the oncoming king. Seeing this, King Cold tried to pull up short, but the blast hit him before he could. King Cold let out a mortal scream of terror before he was vaporized into oblivion. Turning around, Koji fired a ki blast at the late King Cold's spaceship, blasting it into nothingness as well. Afterwards, he touched down on the ground and powered down, letting out a deep sigh.

"Hm?" Koji turned around when he realized that he wasn't alone. Looking up, he saw the Z-Senshi and Bulma hovering up in the air (well, the Senshi hovering up in the air while Yamucha held Bulma up), staring down at him with various expressions of shock on their faces. His hard expression softened and he smiled. "I'm now going to go meet Son Goku-san. Won't you come with me!"

The group above him gasped. All wondering how this unfamiliar person knew about Goku.

"Come on, it's this way," Koji called up to them, pointing left. "Shortly, Son Goku-san is due to arrive in this area."

None of them seemed inclined to moving right away. Koji smiled in amusement as he could feel them all sizing up him, trying to see just exactly what he was about.

"Son Goku-san will be arriving in three hours," he called. "Please come with me."

He didn't wait to see if that would change their minds about him. Turning around, flew off in a nimbus of white fire. Moments later, he wasn't surprised when he sensed the others had decided to follow behind him, though at a careful distance. After all, he knew they must have a lot of questions for him. He led them a long way. Suddenly, he pushed back his left jacket sleeve to look at a high-tech watch as it beeped. On the watch, it displayed a graph of the landscape, and then a number flashed on it.

"Point five-seven three mark one-eight two-two zero," he read. "Well, I guess this is it."

Koji disembarked, landing neatly on his feet. One by one or two by two, the others alighted on the ground behind him nearby. He looked around to see them all regarding him warily. Never taking his eye off them, Koji suddenly reached into the pocket on the left breast of his jacket, pulling out a container. Pressing the button on the top to open the container, three capsules lay inside. There was a blue and white one labelled '89', a yellow and white one labelled '433', and a purple and white one labelled '2031'. He chose the '2031' capsule. He clicked the button and threw it onto the ground where it bounced once and then exploded. When the smoke cleared away, a strange boxy contraption was left behind, with a pump running through on the top. It was labelled '2031'.

"Be careful, everyone!" Yamucha warned. "He's produced a strange object!"

Koji knelt down in front of the strange contraption and opened its door, revealing nothing dangerous but some sodas.

Looking back at the others, he offered, "There's still some time before Son Goku-san arrives. There's plenty here to drink. If you like, be my guest." Opening his drink, he took a grateful sip.

"I'll take one," Bulma accepted.

"Me, too!" Gohan agreed. He and Bulma went over to join Koji, ignoring Kuririn's protests not to.

Koji smiled nostalgically as he watched the younger versions of his adopted mother and his sensei-friend approach him. He was abruptly reminded of the times Gohan would join him and Bulma for dinner when he hadn't been away training. Koji briefly wondered if it was more than a coincidence that it would be those two to decide that he was trustworthy first. Bulma and Gohan had finally came to a stop in front of him.

"I'll help myself, thank you," Gohan said politely, kneeling down in front of the fridge. "Hmm, which one?"

"I don't remember us having this in our product line," Bulma said thoughtfully, bending down beside Gohan.

"I'll take this!" Gohan said. He grabbed his preferred drink, opened it, and drunk some of it. "Wow, delicious!"

"Ah, you're right!" Bulma agreed, after taking a sip of her own drink.

"Maybe I'll have one too," Kuririn decided.

A moment later, Kuririn was enjoying a soda alongside Gohan. While they were doing that, unaware by Koji, Bulma was looking speculatively at him. Realizing he was being watched, Koji turned to face her.

"Have we met somewhere?" she suddenly asked.

"Uh, no, not exactly," Koji answered quickly.

"How is it you know about Father?" Gohan asked, looking to Koji.

"Actually, I've only heard stories about him," Koji replied honestly. "We've never met."

"Huh?" Kuririn said in surprise. "Well then, how do you know that Goku will land here in three hours?"

"Well, uh, that's..." Koji was about to say something, then he remembered what Bulma had told him about telling no one of the events that were to come except for Goku. "Forgive me, I cannot say."

"What do you mean you can't say?" Vegeta demanded, unable to keep silent any longer. "Who exactly are you? How do you come to have such power?"

Koji stared back at Vegeta, unable to believe that his father was actually talking to him. He looked away.

"Forgive me." he said. "That as well..."

"Um, when you defeated Furiza, you were a Super Saiyajin, right?" Gohan inquired.

"Yes," Koji admitted. "Yes I was."

"Cut the crap!" Vegeta blurted brusquely, instantly drawing all eyes on him. "Counting me and Kakarott- or Son Goku as he's known here on Earth- and that Earthling half-breed kid there, there aren't any Saiyajin left but us three! Therefore, there's no way you could be a Saiyajin!"

The others looked to the stranger in surprise, wondering how he would respond to that.

"But the fact remains," Gohan spoke up in the stranger's defense, "he really did become a Super Saiyajin. And he defeated Furiza."

"On top of that, all Saiyajin are black-haired," Vegeta added, ignoring Gohan.

Koji remained silent.

As Bulma looked at him, she suddenly noticed an all-too familiar emblem on the left jacket shoulder.

"Huh? Say, isn't that the trademark of my family's Capsule Corporation? How come? Are you one of our employees?"

"That's not exactly true," Koji replied, trying to keep himself from laughing.

"That's a secret too?" Bulma asked, laughter evident in her voice. "Then is your name and age also a private matter?"

"I can't tell you my name, but I can say I'm 17 years old."

"17," Bulma repeated thoughtfully.

"Not being able to tell us name is a little strange," Tienshinhan opined.

"Yeah, there's no reason for him to keep that from us," Yamucha agreed, growing more and more distrustful of this mysterious teenager by the second. "He's an odd one."

Nearby, Piccolo continued to observe the red-haired warrior without remark. He had to agree with Yamucha and Tienshinhan, it really was a little strange that this person was being so secretive.

"Hey, let's cut out all the questions," Bulma suggested. "We're making him feel awkward. After all, this kid saved us, and the earth as well."

"Right!" Gohan agreed.

Vegeta growled in irritation.

Bulma gave Koji a secret wink. Then she immediately noticed him blushing. She laughed.

"Not only is a man of mystery, but he's shy, too," she said. "That's just so cute!"

Some time later found everyone either sitting about or standing, all waiting for the return of Goku.

Across from Vegeta, Koji sat on a boulder, his right knee drawn up to his chest. He kept stealing glances at the Saiyajin Prince, who looked very un-Saiyajin Prince like in the pink shirt and yellow pants. Vegeta caught him, and it didn't take too long for him to get annoyed with it.

"What the hell do you keep looking at me for?" he growled irritably. "If you are a Saiyajin, then I shouldn't be such a rare sight."

"Sorry," Koji apologized, blushing as he quickly looked away.

Vegeta made an irritated sound. "Bothersome punk."

"Say, check this out," Bulma whispered to Kuririn, "s it me or do those two favor each other? Vegeta and that unusual boy?"

Kuririn turned back to Vegeta and Koji, observing them closely for a bit. "Well, now that you mention it, aside from the hair, I guess I can see a resemblance," he said. "But their dispositions are definitely different!"

Gradually over time, the talking died down, and everyone just simply waited. It wasn't long before most of them had become agitated. After what seemed like an eternity had passed by... a beeping sound emanated from Koji's watch. He smiled. Then he hopped off the boulder.

"Three hours have passed," he announced. "Son Goku-san should be landing any moment."

"Really?" some of the others asked, hopping to their feet excitedly.

In the next moment, those with ki-sensing abilities turned their eyes towards the sky in surprise.

"It's true!" Chaozu exclaimed.

"I feel it!" Tienshinhan agreed. "I can feel his ki!"

"He's coming!" Kuririn said.

"There's something coming, that's for sure!" Yamucha said.

Between the two of them, Bulma was straining her eyes to see what they were seeing. "Then, you mean what this boy said, about the time and location, was all accurate?"

"It's Father!" Gohan exclaimed happily, stepping forward. "It's Father's ki!"

Soon enough, everyone, even Bulma, could see something circular making a swift, steady descent out of the sky. It shot right over them and landed with a loud several yards away, sending up a thick cloud of smoke, dust, and rock fragments.

"Over there!" Kuririn said and took off. The others followed. They arrived at the crash site a few minutes later. While Koji kept his distance atop of a rock structure nearby, the others moved toward the rim of the crater the ship's landing had impacted in the terrain. At the bottom of it sat an all-too familiar space pod.

"Down there!" Gohan said.

As soon as he said that, the door to the pod opened and...Goku stuck his head out, recovering from the landing. The returning Saiyajin was surprised when he heard cheering above him, and looked up to see it was his son and friends (except Vegeta and Piccolo, though Piccolo looked pleased to see him again). He blinked at them in confusion.

"How come all you guys are here?" he asked.

Getting out of the pod, Goku levitated out of the crater and touched down in front of the others.

"How did you guys know I was going to be arriving here now?"

"This boy here, this boy!" Bulma explained, waving a hand in Koji's direction. "He told us you'd be coming here."

"Father, you know this person, right?" Gohan asked.

"Huh?" Goku blinked down at Koji blankly. "Who is he?"

The others looked bewildered.

Koji secretly evaluated the Saiyajin he had only heard about so much. "_So, this is Son Goku-san, Gohan-kun's father. He doesn't look all that tough as mother and even Gohan said, but at the same time...what an awesome ki I sense from him! This is going to be really interesting!"_

"You mean you don't know who he is?" Bulma asked. "Not at all?"

"No, I don't know him at all."

"This boy knew when you would return here, Son-kun," Bulma said.

"Really? That's strange." Goku tilted his head to think this over. "After Furiza's spaceship discovered mine, they must have known when I would arrive. Speaking of which, who was it that defeated Furiza and his men? That was an awesome ki! Piccolo? Or maybe Vegeta?"

"This guy was the one who did Furiza and the others in," Piccolo answered. "It only took a split-second, too. Moreover, just like you, he can become a Super Saiyajin."

Goku stared at Koji, stunned. "Wha? A Super...Saiyajin!...Amazing! But you're so young, and yet you were able to reach that level of power! And I didn't even know there were any other Saiyajin besides ourselves."

"There aren't!" Vegeta interjected angrily. "There are no other Saiyajin besides us! There's no way there could be."

"Hm." Goku crossed his arms and regarded Koji. "Well, makes no difference. Anyhow, you're a Saiyajin, right?"

"Of course it makes a difference!" Bulma said hotly. "You're taking things in stride just like you always do!"

"Really?"

Koji thought it was time he interrupted them. "Son-san?"

"Huh?"

"I need to have a word with you."

"You mean with me?"

"Yes…but just the two of us."

Goku lifted a brow. Then he nodded. "Gotcha."

* * *

Far into the distant future, Bulma sat alone at the kitchen table. Her brows were creased in a frown as she stared down thoughtfully at the gold, hoop earring she held in her right hand.

_*Should I have told him?* _Bulma was asking herself.

Eight months earlier when Koji had recovered from his lone battle against the Jinzouningen, Bulma had pointedly left out a small detail to her son. That day when he was found him unconscious on the doorstep of the hospital, they had also found this very earring lying next to him. What bothered her so much about it was the fact that the earring looked exactly liked the type of earrings the artificial humans wore, and she didn't know what to make of the implications behind this at all.

If one of the cyborgs had brought him to the hospital, then Bulma realized which one it could only be. But why? Why would that person save him? That's what she couldn't understand. Did this mean that...?

"I think you have something of mine," said a voice behind her.

With a look of shock, Bulma quickly rose from her chair and turned. Her face turned pale and her eyes widening in dismay when she saw the blonde Jinzouningen standing in the doorway in front of her.

"Juuhachi-gou!"

Never taking her eyes off her unexpected visitor, she backed up until she walked into the kitchen counter. Of all the terrible predicaments she had to wind up in, her current one was something she had hoped, while she did under any circumstance, would never happen while Koji was off in the Past...too faraway to protect her. Still she and Koji both had known the risks of what would happen while he was away, and she had promised herself that if this was to happen she would show the Jinzouningen no fear. Although, now that this scenario was actually happening, keeping that promise was a lot easier said than done.

In front of her, Juuhachi-gou regarded the blue-haired woman with a smirk of contempt and amusement. The woman was scared; she could practically smell the fear off her. Feeble human, oh how easy it would be to kill her now. Obliterating her completely from history with a ki blast, or snapping her scrawny neck, or taking one of these kitchen knives to carve her up into pieces...those were just three of the ways she could kill Bulma Briefs right now...if she had actually came to do such a thing.

Juuhachi-gou's eyes narrowed. "Well, didn't you hear me? That earring is mine; hand it over!" she said, holding out her right hand.

"Huh?" Bulma answered, blinking stupidly. She had not been expecting that one bit. Then she remembered the earring in her hand, and her brain finally received the message. "Oh! Here!"

Quickly, Bulma crossed the gap between them to place the earring inside Juuhachi-gou's hand, just as quickly returning back over to the kitchen counter. Juuhachi-gou paid no attention to her, as she turned her back to fix her earring on properly. A tense silence filled the room, as Bulma was left wondering what Juuhachi-gou planned to do now that she had her earring back. Something told her she wasn't just going to leave right away. When a few moments passed, and Juuhachi-gou hadn't done anything even after fixing her earring, Bulma started to grow agitated.

"Well?" she asked. "Aren't you going to kill me?"

"Don't order me around!" Juuhachi-gou snapped. "When I want to kill you, I'll do it. Luckily for you, I really don't feel like wasting the time doing it."

Bulma stared at the Jinzouningen's back in surprise. So that meant she wasn't going to kill her? Then what could she possibly be there for other than her earring? Almost immediately after that thought came to her, an answer followed. It was one that surprised the middle-aged woman.

"By the way, where is he?" Juuhachi-gou asked suddenly after a long pause.

"W-who?...Koji?" Bulma asked.

"Who else do you think I'm talking about?" Juuhachi-gou retorted impatiently. "Where is he? I don't sense him anywhere in the house. As tough as he is, certainly he's out of the hospital by now."

"He's away at the moment and I don't know when or if he'll ever be back!" Bulma replied, an edge of defiance in her voice. Due to the topic of this conversation, she grew even bolder and pressed on. "But why did you do it? Why did you save him, anyway? Don't you think it's too late to start acting like a mother after everything you've done?"

Bulma thought for sure her life was over as soon as Juuhachi-gou glared fiercely at her. In that moment of silence, however, remarkably, the blonde woman spun on her heel and walked out of the room. Bulma waited a few minutes, before she finally ventured over to the doorway and peered out into the hallway, but she didn't see Juuhachi-gou down either side of the hallway. It gave her a deja-vu feeling of that day Juuhachi-gou had left Koji with her before Doctor Gero had completely cyberized her.

Realizing that she had somehow escape death due to her mouth again, Bulma leaned against the wall and breathed an audible sigh of relief. As she moved over to the kitchen sink, another realization sunk in, one that quietly amazed her.

_*She didn't just come to retrieve her earring...she really had come to check on him.*_

For a length of time, Bulma did nothing but ponder over what just happened.

* * *

Koji and Goku touched back down to earth at a distance where Koji thought the others couldn't possibly hear what he had to tell him. At least, that's what he thought. He was unaware that one of them had the ability to hear from long-ranges.

"This is far enough," Koji decided.

"Come to think of it, I've forgotten my manners," Goku said. "Sorry for making you knock off Furiza and them for me. Guess I really did go too easy on him. I should have polished him off for good on Nameksei."

Koji smiled. "Furiza and his men were actually supposed to have been defeated by yourself, but some kind of time discrepancy came up, making that impossible. And so I had little choice but to step in."

"Yeah. Furiza's ship was faster than mine, and they passed me up." Goku looked downward as he clenched his fists. "He didn't seem at all sorry about what he'd done, so I was going to put him away, and then you showed up."

"There were three hours until you got here," Koji reminded him. "So of course it was impossible for you to deal with him."

As smug expression fell over his face, something about it struck Goku as faintly familiar.

"Oh, not really," Goku replied. "I've gotten myself a new technique."

"A new technique?" Koji asked, raising a brow; Bulma never told him of some new technique Goku had learned.

"Yeah, it's called Shuken Idou," Goku explained, winking at him.

"Shuken Idou?" Koji repeated.

"The folks on a planet called Yardratsei taught it to me. They were some unusual folks. Not all that powerful, but they did know all kinds of techniques. I could have moved myself from inside the spaceship I was in to wherever Furiza was in an instant."

"Is that so? I wasn't aware that you had learned such a technique, Son-san. I was certain there was no way you could have arrived without your spaceship for that three hours." Koji stared at the ground, frowning in self-shame. "I've changed history for no reason. On top of that, I only meant to meet with you, Son-san, but instead I've run into everyone else as well."

"History?" Goku repeated. "What are you talking about?"

"Before I answer, I have something to ask you. Son-san, can you, on your own accord, become a Super Saiyajin at will?"

Goku thought that over. "Yeah. I couldn't at first, but I struggled with it and managed to bring it under control."

Koji turned to face him fully. "Then may I ask you to turn show me, here and now?"

"Huh?"

"It is my humble request."

"You got it."

All the childlike qualities in his expression were now gone, replaced by a serious mask of concentration. Right before Koji's eyes, Goku had transformed into a Super Saiyajin.

"Is this okay?" Goku asked, his voice low and intense.

"Thank you," Koji said gratefully. He smiled. "It's amazing1 You look so much like I do as a Super Saiyajin."

"Okay, now what?"

"I will also become a Super Saiyajin." In a blink of an eye, Koji transformed. Goku stared at Koji in a stunned expression.

"We really do look alike," he remarked.

The smile vanished from Koji's face. "Please excuse me."

In the next instant, Koji unsheathed his sword and charged across the gap between them. He brought his sword down towards Goku...then stopped as the blade had gotten a hairsbreadth away from Goku's forehead. Koji stared at the older Saiyajin in surprise.

"Why didn't you try to move out of the way?" he asked.

Goku grinned. "Your ki was not that of a killer. I knew you would stop."

"I see, " Koji said, pulling his sword back. He raised it again. "Very well then, this time I will not stop. Do you understand?"

"Got it," Goku replied. Holding out his right index finger, it flared with power.

Koji took that as a cue, as he charged Goku, roaring his battle cry. He swung away at Goku, only to be deflected each time by his opponent's index finger. With another battle cry, Koji brought his sword down again, only to be blocked again. Koji smirked. Touching down, Koji carelessly tossed his sword into the air, and then powered back down.

"So the stories were true. No, you're even better!" Koji praised.

Goku shifted back into his base form as well. Leaning slightly to the left, the sword landed neatly in Koji's scabbard.

"This was the very sword I used to slice up Furiza."

"You just weren't trying your hardest."

"I now see I can put my trust in you," Koji said. "I will tell you everything. I had to know I could trust you before I told you anything. I apologize for the secrecy, but I need your word that you won't tell anyone else what I'm about to say."

"Okay. Feel at ease to me anything. My lips are sealed."

"Thank you. This may sound unbelievable to those of you in this era, but I've travelled back from nearly twenty years in the future in a time machine."

"From the future?" Goku repeated, awed. "Twenty years?"

"Yes. My name is Koji. If you're wondering how it is I can have Saiyajin blood, the reason is because I am the son of Vegeta-san over there."

"WHAT!?" Goku exclaimed, stunned, almost falling over. "Vegeta's! Are you really Vegeta's son!?"

Koji nodded. "Yes."

After being told this shocking revelation, Goku took a closer look at Koji, and right away he noticed the similarity between Koji and his father. So that's why this teenager he hadn't seen before until today looked so familiar.

"Yeah, I see it," he said. "I can see the resemblance- even with the red hair. Wow...He's your pop, huh?"

"Two years from now, I will be born," Koji added.

"That's quite a surprise," Goku said, staring back at Vegeta. Something occurred to him. "Hey, if Vegeta's your Papa, then who is your Mama?"

Koji's expression hardened. "Telling you who my parents are isn't why I came here. Son-san, there are important things I must make you aware of. In three years from this current era, on May 12 around 10 A.M, on an island located 9 kilometers to southwest of South City, a terrifying pair of villains will appear. They will be monsters, both possessing a power so great, it will be unthinkable that they are of this world."

Goku listened seriously. "Who are they? Aliens?"

"No. They are born of Earth. They are Jinzouningen."

"Artificial Humans?"

"Yes, but these two can also be called Cyborgs. They were once regular humans."

"No way!" Goku replied in disbelief.

Koji went on. "It's true. They were created by a maniacal scientist, formerly of the Red Ribbon Army, named Doctor Gero."

"Red Ribbon Army!" Goku repeated, shocked. That name was very familiar to him. "Red Ribbon Army? You mean the same Red Ribbon Army I wiped out?"

"That's right. The army itself was struck down many years ago by yourself. However, Doctor Gero survived, and continued his research."

Goku was quiet for a long moment, tossing over in his mind what he was just told. He then looked up at Koji.

"What did he do it for? I mean, was he after world domination?"

"No one is really sure, but I think Doctor Gero was after at least that much. However, those artificial humans, built to be ultimate killing machines-rebelled and also killed their own creator, Doctor Gero. In short, all that remained were the Jinzouningen, who liked nothing better than causing death and destruction."

Goku crossed his arms, looking pensive (something he didn't do too often). "Hm. You defeated Furiza with ease, but from what you say these Jinzouningen are far tougher."

Koji nodded. "Yes. I've stood up to them, but there's two of them, after all. Even one-on-one, it was all I could do just to escape them."

"Hold on," Goku said, a thought coming to him. "If there's two of them...Don't you have any allies?"

"No," Koji answered grimly. "Twenty years from now, I am the only warrior still alive. In twenty years, I will be the only warrior to survive! In the battle three years from now, my dad, Vegeta, Kuririn-san, Yamucha-san, Tienshinhan-san, Chaozu-san, and Piccolo-san were all killed. Son Gohan was just barely able to escape. He was my master and friend, teaching me everything he knew. That was up until four years ago when he, too, was taken away. As you are already aware, with Piccolo-san gone, the Dragonballs also disappear, so we were unable to bring anyone back to life. As a result of the Artificial Humans taking so many lives to amuse themselves over the years, the future that I come from is a living hell. They're too strong! They're just too strong!" Koji growled, barely able to contain his rage.

"Just a minute. What about me?" Goku asked. "What happens to me? Am I killed too?"

"You won't even fight," Koji told him grimly. "In a short time, you will become very sick. Soon after, you will pass away."

Goku blanched from that revelation.

"It will be a viral infection of your heart. Not even a mighty Super Saiyajin can win against this illness."

"Oh no, senzou doesn't have any effect on the illness either?" Goku asked. He then fumed. "Aw, crud, I'm going to die? What a rip-off, I wanted to fight them! Shoot!"

Koji stared at him incredulously. "You're really that disappointed at not being able to fight? Aren't you scared?"

"Sure I'm scared," Goku admitted. "But these guys are incredibly strong, right? I sure would like to give them a shot!"

Koji smiled. "You certainly are a true Saiyajin warrior. You're exactly how my Mother and Gohan-san described you. We can surely count on you. I'm glad I came!"

As Goku blinked at him curiously, Koji reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small tube.

"When your symptoms first appear, take this," he said.

"What have you got?" Goku asked, as Koji dropped the tube into his hand.

"It's medicine for you. There is no treatment in this time, but twenty years from now, we have a cure. That medicine will allow you to make it through alive."

"You mean it! All right! I wish you'd told me sooner!"

"It really isn't good for me to be doing this sort of thing," Koji said gravely. "It changes history. But considering the history we'll be changing...I believe you'll definitely manage to do something about all of this. My Kaasan also hopes so, which allowed her to struggle through and finally complete her time machine."

"Hold on! Who is your Mother?" Goku asked. "She knows me?"

"Yes, quite well."

"And she built a time machine?" Goku asked. A foolish expression was decorating his face. Son Goku may not have been the sharpest person around, but even he saw where this was leading to. "Don't tell me! She is..."

"Yes. It's Bulma-san."

"B-BULMA!" the childlike Saiyajin exclaimed in surprise. He looked around back at Bulma, then at Koji, and burst in laughter again. "I can't believe it! I'd never picture her as the mothering type-wait a minute! So this means Bulma and Vegeta-"

Koji shook his head, chuckling a bit. "Let me cut you off there. Maybe I should've been more precise. While Vegeta is my actual father, Bulma is my adopted mother. Two years from now, after I'm born, my birth mother will drop me off at Capsule Corporation where Father is." His expression turned sad. "However, Father would never make time for me. So Bulma-san had taken it upon herself to raise me."

Goku stared back at the young man in sympathy. "But what happened to your birth mother? Do I know her, too?"

There was a long pause. Koji then shook his head. "No, at this time, you don't know her, but you will in three years when the Jinzouningen attack. Forgive me, Son-san, I just don't like to talk about her. She's done so many horrible things that it makes me truly disgusted at the fact that I was brought into this world by her." Cold hatred could clearly be heard in his voice. "Deep down, a small part of me has come to realize that she's not completely responsible for her actions, and that Dr. Gero is to blame for that as well. But...I still can't forgive her! So as far as I'm concerned, Bulma will always be my _real mother_."

"Damn that guy," Goku growled. "This Gero guy really did make a mess of things in the future, huh? Well, now that I know all of this, I'm going to get stronger and make sure none of that tragic stuff repeats itself here!"

Koji smiled at the older man. "I know you will."

Koji suddenly looked past Goku over at the specks that were the others. He smiled. "Since my dad died when I was so young, I have no memories of him at all. So it was very moving for me to get to meet him a little while ago. It was also good to see Gohan-san alive and well again. Now, please be sure to especially keep this matter a secret, okay? If you say anything, my father may not go for the idea of meeting of my mother, and my very existence will be erased!"

"Don't worry, your secret is safe with me!" Goku assured.

"Well, then, I'll being excusing myself now," Koji said politely. "I want to return to the future and reassure Youbo-no _Kaasan_ as soon as I can."

"Sure," Goku answered. "And tell her I said thanks for saving my life. It'll be nice if we can change the future, huh?"

"Yes. Knowing your strength, Goku-san, has raised my hopes," Koji said.

"Will we meet again?" Goku asked.

"I don't know," Koji answered. "It takes a long time to gather the energy necessary for the time machine to make a round trip. If I am still alive after that time has passed, I will definitely come help out! Three years from now."

"Be sure you survive," Goku said, smiling. "You've got yourself a good goal. Like I already said, I'll be training as much as I can the next three years for the same reason."

Moments later, Koji was inside the time machine, hovering meters up in the air. He looked down at the others, though Vegeta in particular.

"Dad…you are strong, proud, and stern, just as I was told," Koji murmured. "But what surprised me the most about you was...you look exactly like I've always imagined you to be."

Smiling, he waved, and his craft rose higher into the air before shooting upward in a gold streak of light and vanishing.

* * *

**To Be Continued**


	6. The Ultimate Liberation

**Disclaimer: Must we go through this? Oh, okay, but we most of us already knew that Dragonball Z and its many characters is owned by Akira Toriyama, Toei, and other people with more money than me. I only own the original characters, which really won't be that many.**

**Author's Note: If anyone was expecting me to redo the entire Artificial Humans/Cell Sagas back in the Past, I really am sorry if I've disappointed you. I just didn't see the need to. So yeah this chapter, which is the last and will be proceeded by an epilogue, will basically tell you all about what happened to Koji when he got back to the Future. **

**Chapter Five: The Ultimate Liberation**

* * *

After everything Koji had endured during his second trip to the Past, it was almost hard for him to believe that was he was finally on his way back home. He was looking forward to seeing his adopted mother again. Aside from missing her, he really had a lot to tell her.

Moving further and further through time and space, memories of his adventure back in the other era ran a quick series in his mind. From telling Vegeta he was his son... Having to confront the Past version of his birth mother and uncle, who had been even more powerful than the Jinzouningen from his time, though ultimately nowhere near as evil...Training inside the Room of Spirit and Time with his father came next...Then there came the battle against Cell, a Artificial Human more terrifying than even Juuhachi-gou or Juunana-gou, designed for the purpose of absorbing them both and reaching his Perfect stage...Having to fight his father when he foolishly stepped aside so Cell could go after his mother and absorb her, just so he could satisfy his unbridled ego...His own personal battle against Cell that ended in defeat due to his inexperience...Son Goku sacrificing himself to save them all...Put on the brink of death himself by a surprise attack from a returning and more powered-up Cell, which drove his father into a murderous rage and attempt to avenge him...Having to tell Vegeta that Juuhachi-gou was his mother when he tried to kill her at the Lookout...Speaking with Juuhachi-gou on his last night at Capsule Corporation...And finally, his parents standing almost together in front of him, both of them wishing him luck in their own personal ways.

It had all started to seem like a dream to him, but he knew better. Everything he had experienced and learned from that era had definitely been real. Now he was going to take his newfound strength and courage back home and finally defeat the Jinzouningen. The smile on his face morphed into a deadly, haughty smirk. His birth mother and uncle would be in for quite the cold surprise when they came across him again.

Following that thought, a brilliant light exploded before him, and Koji quickly closed his eyes as he knew what was coming. When he felt the light fade back to an acceptable degree, Koji reopened his eyes. He was met by the exact same gorgeous, blue sky he had just left back in the other dimension. Looking below, Koji smiled when he saw the only-too familiar decayed golden dome sitting in the center of the ravaged West Capitol. He was back home all right. Even though it was a wreck, he never thought his house looked more beautiful than he did right now; even more so than the unimpaired version he had been living in during his stay in the Past.

Koji alighted the Time Machine right outside his house. Opening the glass door lid, the red-haired young man leaped over the side, lightly landing on his feet. Not bothering to encapsulate it, he quickly dashed inside the building through the basement entrance, already knowing his adopted mother was most likely in the lab. He was right. When he found her, Bulma was sitting in front of the computer, seeming completely engrossed in whatever she was doing as her fingers quickly flew over the keyboard. Koji smiled again. He was glad to see that some things haven't changed.

Realizing someone was there, Bulma stopped what she was doing and looked toward the staircase. Her face instantly melted into a smile of elation.

"Son!"

"Kaasan, I'm home!"

"Welcome back, Koji!"

Bulma stood out of her chair just as Koji walked down the steps to fully enter the lab. Bulma had originally intended to hug him, but as soon as she got within arms-length of him, she paused and crossed her arms. Her brows furrowed together into a slight frown. She moved closer and started to circle him, studying him as she seemed to notice something about her son that hadn't been there before.

"Huh?" Koji said, feeling like he was under a microscope. "What are you doing?"

"You've changed somehow," Bulma remarked. "I can definitely tell. You seem...You've gotten a lot taller, and you also look a little older."

"That's right, Mother," Koji confirmed, nodding. "In Kami-sama's palace there is a strange room called the Room of Spirit and Time. You can spend a whole year in there in just a day."

Bulma looked completely lost.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, laughing a bit, "but I'm just glad you're back in one piece. So, how was it? By the look on your face, I'd say it was good."

"Yes, Mother!"

Moments later, Bulma placed a tea and saucer down on the table in front of Koji, then she sat down in front of her own. Her adopted son began regaling her with his second journey back into the Past.

"It's so nice to hear that Yamucha's doing well back there," Bulma said, her expression slightly downcast at the mention of her first true love; yet at the same time, she looked happy. "And also how that Bulma finally managed to get him settled down. I envy her for that." Bulma's face turned even more despondent. "So, Son-kun...so he died after all, huh? But Gohan-kun was able to get revenge against his murderer, right?"

Koji nodded, taking a drink of his own tea. "Father also fought with us."

"What?" Bulma replied disbelievingly. "V-Vegeta?"

"Just like you said, Father wasn't entirely a cold person," Koji said, smiling. He turned back to Bulma. "When I seriously wounded by Cell...he got really angry and attacked Cell with all he had."

Briefly, Bulma looked completely dumbfounded to hear such a thing. Then she laughed to try and cover it up.

"See, I told you," Bulma said, waving a finger at him. However, as Bulma turned to take a drink of her tea, she privately thought, _*I can't believe it. Vegeta, that arrogant, impossible man,, actually did something so noble...*_

Placing her cup down, something occurred to Bulma.

"Wait, if what you say is true, then does that mean he knows you're his son?"

"Yes..." Koji paused for a moment, his expression becoming slightly serious. "That world's Juuhachi-gou knows as well. When I had arrived back in the Past, I had discovered that I had completely altered history and created alternate dimensions. In that world, my parents never met before the day Dr. Gero released them, and so I wasn't even born like I should have been."

Bulma sighed a bit. "I was afraid something like that might happen." Bulma took another sip of her tea, though as she placed the cup back down on the table, her visage looked much more serious. "While I was working on the Time Machine, I knew messing with time was risky, but back then...I thought it was risk well worth it to take, if it meant finding a way to stop the Jinzouningen."

"Right," Koji agreed. For a split second, he almost looked rueful, then he smiled. "And I doubt I will ever be born now after I told Vegeta and Juuhachi-gou about me. Juuhachi-gou-san emphatically promised me that it wouldn't happen when I was talking to her."

Bulma looked even more amazed. Particularly because of her son adding -san to Juuhachi-gou's name.

Koji continued. "I could hardly believe it myself, but we actually talked like regular people," Koji replied. Another thing that was altered by me time-travelling was the Jinzouningen's personalities. In fact, compared to the ones in this time, those two were downright nice, though still not THAT nice. While they caused their share bit of trouble, they never delighted in cold-blooded murder. They had the chance to take us all out, but they didn't."

"That's very interesting," Bulma said, turning over what Koji had just said in her mind, while also thinking to that visit she had gotten from Juuhachi-gou while he was away in the Past the first time..

"You'll find this funny, but Father and Juuhachi-gou are also living under the same roof back there," Koji said. "Bulma decided to let Juuhachi-gou stay with them after she saved her life."

Bulma blinked at her son in surprise at first. But then didn't really look all that surprised. She laughed. "Yeah, that's pretty much something I would've done."

* * *

Juunana-gou sighed in annoyance, bored out his mind. He flipped through channel after channel, finding nothing of interest. It was mostly because it was nothing but reruns on. Although in retrospect, the dark-haired Jinzouningen knew that was his and his sister's fault.

"This just won't do," he irritably, turning the TV off altogether. He put the remote down on the table standing by his right elbow.

"What are you complaining about now, Juunana-gou?" Juuhachi-gou asked, as she was descending down the stairs.

"It's getting too dull around here," Juunana-gou remarked. His usual careless grin curved his mouth as he stood up, an idea coming to him. "Maybe going out to play with the humans will liven things up!"

"Don't you think we've killed enough of them already?" Juuhachi-gou replied, stopping on the bottom step. At the questioning look her brother gave her, she quickly added, "I mean, the human race is already staggering as it is. If we killed the ones who are still alive out there, then we won't have any to play with afterwards."

Juunana-gou looked as if he was about to say something, but he was abruptly cut off when the front door was suddenly blasted off. Juuhachi-gou immediately went to go join her brother's side, both staring wide-eyed at the place where the front door had just been a second ago.

"What in the world?" Juuhachi-gou said, still wide-eyed. Beside her, her twin scowled furiously at the damaged doorway.

"Who in the hell destroyed our door!?" Juunana-gou demanded.

A reply came a second later. It came in the form of one the oddest Creatures that either of the cyborgs had ever laid eyes on before. It was some kind of insectoid, covered in a dark green-light green carapace decorated in black spots, and Its eyes were slitted like that of a reptilian. It was also taller than both of the twins. Its mouth was orange and orifice-like; there were two protrusions on the top of its head that ran off in two different directions. The back of its head was orange, just as it was near the abdominal area and over its crotch. Attached to its back was a pair of wings, both green and covered in black spots as well. A long, sinewy tail was attached to its lower back, terminating in a strange stinger of some sorts.

It grinned and said, "Good afternoon. My name is Cell."

* * *

Back at Capsule Corp, Koji and Bulma were sharing a good laugh over something. Koji was just about to take another drink of his tea, but just as he had brought the cup up to his lips, he froze up in place as something touched his senses. Something too disturbingly familiar. Placing his cup down on the table, the warrior rose out of his seat, his face grim and hard.

"Dammit," he growled, clenching his right fist. "_He _wasn't supposed to show up until three years later!"

Bulma looked up at him in a mix of concern and bewilderment.

"What's wrong, son?" she asked. "What are you saying?"

"It's time for me to go fight!"

Bulma's eyes widened at the statement. "Fight? You mean against the Cyborgs?"

Koji shook his head. "I'll defeat them, too, but right now I'm talking about something even worse than those two combined."

"Something worse than them?" his adopted mother repeated, looking alarmed. Then recognition sunk in. "Could this "He" you're talking about be the Cell you mentioned?"

Her question was confirmed with a grim nod.

"Koji..."

Koji smiled down at his adopted mother in assurance. "It's all right. This is the reason why I went back into the past to meet Goku-san."

Before Bulma could get him to explain things any further, Koji walked around the table and transmuted to Super Saiyajin. Taking off his red jacket, he flung it into the air behind him, where it landed neatly on the chair he was just occupying.

"I have to bring peace to his era as well as the past," he stated unwaveringly.

"Be careful, Koji," Bulma said. After a momentary pause, she added, "And don't do anything you may regret."

Koji gave his adopted mother a brief look of confusion, then he grinned reassuringly.

"Yes!"

Wasting no more time, Koji ran out of the kitchen and headed for the nearest exit. Soon he was flying through the air, swiftly making his way towards the source of that disturbance he had sense.

_*There's no mistake about it. That huge ki I'm feeling is definitely Cell's!* _Koji thought grimly. _*But that's impossible! He's not supposed to show up yet! In case, I have to get to him quick before he manages to find mo-that thing and its brother!*_

* * *

At their 'Hideout', the twins were still staring down their most unexpected, most bizarre and most hideous visitor, who looked entirely too pleased to see them.

"Bastard! I hope you enjoyed this little stunt of yours," Juunana-gou said, his voice peevish. "Because now it's going to cost you your life!"

"Forgive me for my rudeness," Cell apologized, smiling. He stepped further into the house, now only standing a short distance away from the twins. "You see, I'm such a big fan of you two, Artificial Humans Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou, and all of your work. I was _forced _to wait so long before I could meet you two in person that I just couldn't contain myself after finally finding you."

"A fan? We actually have a fan, sister," Juunana-gou said sardonically. "Who would've ever guessed?"

Beside him, Juuhachi-gou remained quiet, cupping both elbows; a frown decorating her pretty features as she observed this strange creature intently. She had immediately come to conclusion that she didn't trust him, nor did she like him either. Juuhachi-gou didn't know exactly what was about him- maybe it was because of that creepy smile on his horrible face or the lazy way its tail swung to and fro behind him- but there was something about him she found suspicious and disquieting. She knew it would be wise to stay on guard.

"Well, since you're such a big fan and all, I'll try my best to kill you as painlessly as possible," Juunana-gou said, lifting a hand.

That creepy smile abruptly transformed into a creepier grin. It made Juuhachi-gou's skin crawl. So did the way his reptilian tail started to move faster behind him, its strange needle-like pincer scraping the floor. She was reminded of a dog wagging its tail when it knew it was about to get a treat, and it made her skin crawl.

Cell suddenly flung his head back and let out a short bark of wicked laughter.

"The doctor's computer forgot to inform me you two would be so amusing!" he said.

That definitely got the twins' attention.

"Doctor?" Juuhachi-gou repeated.

Juunana-gou's eyes narrowed dangerously on the ugly stranger. "You wouldn't be talking about Doctor Gero, would you?"

"Yes, I would," Cell said, chuckling. "Just like you two, I am also an Artificial Human created by the brilliant doctor- his ultimate android!"

Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou stared back at Cell. Juunana-gou erupted in laughter, while Juuhachi-gou glowered at the insectoid Jinzouningen.

"You, his ultimate android?" Juunana-gou asked incredulously. "Obviously you're malfunctioning, pal. Gero's ultimate android is standing right in front of you!"

The grin widened. "To reach Gero's goal, however, I require two components that will enable me to ascend to my Perfect form."

"And just what are these components that will make you into the ultimate android?" Juunana-gou scorned.

Cell's tail rose higher behind him; Juuhachi-gou definitely didn't miss the movement.

It should've been a precursor to her as to what was about to happen.

Cell's tail abruptly lashed out towards them with snakelike speed. Juuhachi-gou and Juunana-gou dove out of the way in different directions, the needle-like tail smashing through the wall the twins had been standing in front of just a couple of seconds ago.

"What the hell!?" Juunana-gou said-and he just barely missed Cell's tail again as it rushed towards him with Jinzouningen-like speed, ripping a part of his shirt. The tail went after Juunana-gou again, stabbing repeatedly at him, only to miss each time.

All the while, Cell laughed with twisted glee.

While he had decided to single out Juunana-gou, he had seemed to momentarily forget about Juuhachi-gou. Taking advantage of this opening, Juuhachi-gou fired a ki blast at the horrible creature. Cell let out a grunt, but not one from pain as the blast carried him out the door into the middle of the driveway. Before Cell could completely regain his bearings, a furious Juunana-gou lunged over and struck with a nasty punch to the face, sending the insectoid soaring through the gate and out into the ruined city.

Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou quickly followed after him, both wearing similar expressions of pure murder on their faces. They looked around for Cell, but he seemed to have disappeared.

"Where is he?" Juuhachi-gou wondered.

"I don't know," Juunana-gou growled, completely livid; first that creature had had the audacity to blow up their door and try to attack them, and he also tore up his favorite shirt! "But when we find him, he's dead!"

"Are you two searching for me?" a voice taunted above them.

The twins immediately turned around and looked up to see Cell hovering several feet into the air over them. His arms and legs were spread out, and his mouth was still stretch out in an evil grin.

"Bastard! There you are!" Juunana-gou snarled, launching himself into the air after Cell. He missed with the first punch he threw, as Cell quickly vanished out of the way, but Juunana-gou followed him.

For a brief moment, Juuhachi-gou remained on the ground, watching as Cell and Juunana-gou exchanged punches and kicks high over her. Despite her feelings towards the creature, she couldn't help but to be a little impressed that it could keep up with Juunana-gou as well as he was. However, when she saw one of Cell's punches come just a little too close to Juunana-gou, she decided to stop watching and help.

Cell surprised Juunana-gou by catching the next punch he threw and driving his knee hard into his abdomen. But before he could follow up, he noticed Juuhachi-gou swiftly approaching and immediately backed a short distance away. Juuhachi-gou pulled up beside her brother, who had quickly recovered. The two exchanged looks and unnoticeable nods, then looked back stonily back towards Cell. In the next instant, the twins slowly slid towards one another, seeming to melt into each other until there was Juuhachi-gou only standing by herself.

"Huh?" Cell said, gawping.

Juuhachi-gou charged Cell, with Juunana-gou sliding out from behind her and joining her by her side. Cell put himself on guard, but even that wasn't enough against the twins' perfectly coordinated double team attack. Juunana-gou got him from below by kicking his legs out from underneath him, Juuhachi-gou followed up with a vicious knee to Cell's midsection, and then Juunana-gou caught Cell in the side of the face with a clasp-fisted punch. Standing side by side, Juuhachi and Juunana topped it all off with a combined ki blast. Cell let out a yelp as the ki blast shoved him through a row of buildings, before he finally made a loud crash into the middle of an old highway.

The cyborg twins touched down where Cell crashed. When the smoke and dust ebbed away, they discovered their opponent lying prone on the ground.

"So much for the so-called ultimate android," Juunana-gou sneered.

Juuhachi-gou didn't say anything, instead frowning down at the motionless form. Her instincts were telling her that something about this was just a little too easily, but he seemed completely dead, so maybe he was.

"Let's go, already," she said.

Unfortunately, her instincts had been too right. Just as she was about to turn away, Cell's tail suddenly start to move. Juuhachi-gou didn't see it, but Juunana-gou actually had seen. He also saw when Cell had halfway turned himself over and extended his right hand out towards her...

"Look out!"

Right behind those words, Juuhachi-gou felt hands shoving her away hard, and she fell face-first on the road. Unharmed, she turned to see what had happened, Juuhachi-gou stared in horror as her brother stood frozen in place, his back still steaming with smoke from where he had took the ki blast that Cell had intended for her. As Juunana-gou slowly fell to his knees on the ground, she was suddenly struck with another lost memory...

_She stared, torn, as her brother struggled to stop Dr. Gero from using his Emergency Deactivator Controller. _

_"Megumi! Don't just stand there, run!" her brother yelled at her. _

_"But what about you, Hiro?" Megumi called back. _

_"Don't worry about me!" Hiro told her. "I'll be right behind you. So just GO!" _

_Hating herself for it, Megumi turned and left her brother alone with the twisted madman, trying to ignore her unborn son kicking at her stomach from the inside, and the sudden explosion she heard behind her as she had reached the opening and flew away, tears streaming from her face..._

When Juuhachi-gou came back to herself, she saw Cell walking out of the crater and pulling up behind Juunana-gou, grinning victoriously. His tail hovered over Juunana-gou, poised to strike.

"Juunana-gou!" she called.

Apparently, that blast had taken a lot more out of Juunana-gou than she had thought, as her brother was moving rather sluggishly as he tried to get back to his feet.

"Juunana-gou! Move!" Juuhachi-gou called again.

Even as she said that, the tip of Cell's tail widened into a gaping black hole.

Looking directly at her, Cell said, "Time to say goodbye to your brother!"

Cell's tail started to draw Juunana-gou in like a vacuum cleaner. Juuhachi-gou tried to pull herself back up to her feet and help him, but she was utterly rooted where she stood, watching as Cell's tail sucked her brother in further and further, his feet dangling as he struggled to get free. At last, she could soon no longer see his feet, as Cell fully consumed her brother.

Juuhachi-gou watched in openmouthed shock, unable to wrap her sophisticated mind around what she just witnessed. She then started to scream at herself: *_Why? Why wasn't I able to do anything!*_

Cell only laughed, sounding even more horrible before. And then his whole body became lit up in an eerie, blue light.

* * *

Koji had finally just reached the city where this was all taking place, but stopped in midair when he felt it. A horribly sharp rise in Cell's ki. A horrified expression decorated his face.

"Oh, no!" he muttered alarmingly. "It's started!"

He tried pick up speed, but was forced to stop again, when a brilliant light suddenly exploded from the center of the city, forcing Koji to shield himself...

* * *

When the world had finally stopped rattling and the horrible light had faded away, Juuhachi-gou finally lowered her arm from her face and opened her eyes. She immediately wished she hadn't, as her countenance twisted in dismay. Just when she thought Cell couldn't look even more gruesome, he had managed to prove her wrong.

After absorbing her brother, Cell's appearance had completely changed. From where he had once resembled some kind of insectoid, he now looked more humanoid, and his body had bulked up considerably with muscles. Already tall to begin with, his height had doubled. Where he had once had no nose and an orifice for a mouth, he now had both. His nose was black and flat, and his mouth was pink. While it was actually his skin, the black sections above his mouth vaguely resembled a mustache. The two off-shooting sections of the top of his head now stood straight up; the back of his head and the black section on his forehead are now formed together as a ball in between the two sections on his head. Replacing his once reptilian slit-like eyes were two blue orbs, and covering either side of his face with an actual pair of ears, orange in color that ran down both sides of his face cover to cover his chin. Both his clawed feet resembled shoes, and metal plates covered both his ankles. Most notable about him was that his tail was much longer than before, protruding from his back now, striped orange and black.

While she didn't have regular ki-sensing abilities, she could tell that Cell was much more powerful than before...and much more powerful than herself.

Fortunately for her Juuhachi-gou, Cell was ignoring her in favor of staring down at himself in utter amazement, marveling over the incredible power that flooded that his artificial veins now. Ever since he was just a tiny larva, Cell had known that absorbing Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou was supposed to increase his power to absurd levels, but even he didn't expect this much.

_*Incredible! Absolutely incredible! No one can compare to me!* _Cell thought with gleeful haughtiness. _"And to think, I haven't even reached the exact extent of my full power!" _

Right after that realization, Cell finally lifted his head to stare directly at Juuhachi-gou. He relished in the actual fear he saw in her eyes. He started to stalk towards her.

Juuhachi-gou stood to her feet; while she knew she was definitely no match against this creature on her own, she was not going to take this laying down. She still felt a great deal of self-loathing for just sitting there and watching Juunana-gou be taken by Cell without doing anything about it. She would not let the same thing happen to her.

"Don't even bother," Cell sneered, stopping a few meters away from her. Something else that had changed due his transformation was the sound of Cell's voice; it was much more deeper now. "After integrating your brother into me, as I was designed to do by the great Gero-hakase, I'm far out of your league now! So then, it's time for you to join him...to join absolute perfection! Accept your destiny!"

"Go to hell!" Juuhachi-gou spat defiantly, her fists clenching at her sides. "I don't care what that old geezer created you for! No one's going to absorb me!"

Cell laughed smugly. Juuhachi-gou didn't know why, but something about his expression just then reminded her of Vegeta.

"Fine, then," he said gruffly. "Since you don't want to do this the easy way, then we'll have to do it the hard way, which really makes no difference to me. Because either way, we're going to one big happy family!"

Juuhachi-gou stood her ground, even as Cell started to move towards her again. Even though her instincts were telling her to get the hell out of there, she was determined not to let this monster intimidate her.

Then a ki blast tore through the sky towards Cell. But the android saw it approach out the corner of his eye and quickly jumped backwards out of the way. The blast struck a building nearby, skewering off the top half, which sent a tremor through the ruined city as it landed.

Juuhachi-gou and Cell looked up simultaneously when a shadow fell over them. Both Artificial Humans watched with varying surprise as Super Saiyajin Koji alighted in the space between them.

_*K-Koji!* _Juuhachi-gou thought in shock. What was he doing there?

Koji stared stonily at the woman who had borne him, holding her gaze for a long moment. Then his teal eyes shifted onto Cell.

"I see...you pulled the exact stunt as the Cell from that other world did," Koji said comprehendingly. He smiled at the look of bafflement and surprise on Cell's face. "You come from yet another future where you killed me so that you could get your hands on the Time Machine. After turning yourself into an egg, you traveled to the Past in hopes of finding Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou to absorb them so you could reach your ultimate form."

"What!?" Cell exploded, stunned. "How the hell did you know that?"

Juuhachi-gou observed in quiet shock.

"That plan is a mistake," Koji replied, grinning haughtily. "It will end now."

Cell gaped at Koji. Then he laughed.

"Yes, you are absolutely correct, Koji," Cell told him. "that was originally my plan! Unfortunately, in the past time I traveled to, by the time I regained my previous form it was too late. Another Cell had shown up before me and had already absorbed both Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou. As I wondered what my next course of action should be, I saw you there in that world and it made me realize that you too must come from another era- one where Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou are both likely still alive in your world. So, while you and the other fighters were facing my counterpart at his tournament, I paid a little visit to Capsule Corporation to steal your Time Machine just so I could reach this time."

Cell grinned. "But as you can see, such a plan is unnecessary for me now. I've already realized half of my purpose. All there is left to do is absorb Juuhachi-gou, and then I'll be able to reach my ultimate form! Just like that other Cell!"

Mother and son glared at half-perfect android.

"Forget it!" Koji replied, his burning with anger. "I hate that I wasn't fast enough to stop you from achieving this form. But I'll make up for it by killing you right now!"

_"Don't be such a naive fool!" _

Surprisingly, that came from Juuhachi-gou, and Koji turned to her with a stunned expression. He was suddenly reminded of Bulma calling him a naive fool when he dumbly flew off into battle against the Jinzouningen on his own, only to barely escape alive. Even the scathing expression she gave him resembled the same look his adopted mother had given him.

"You couldn't even beat myself or Juunana-gou at less than half power," Juuhachi-gou added. "What makes you think you can handle someone like this creep! Do you want to die that badly?"

Koji glared at her in cold anger. "Do not talk to me like that!...Do not talk to me like you actually care!" he snapped, his sharp words lashing out like a whip. "Nothing has changed between us! I just refuse to let Cell continue to have his way. If he absorbs you, then it really is all over for this world. Once I have defeated Cell...it's your turn!"

Juuhachi-gou stared at him wide-eyed, however, Koji completely ignored her as he turned his attention back onto Cell.

"Cell, in your Perfect form, you had incredible power, all right," Koji said. "I know from personal experience what you are truly capable of. But while you may have already gotten Juunana-gou, I am still strong enough to defeat you."

"Is that so?" Cell growled, glaring irritably at the confident young warrior. Then crossed the android's mind. "I see now, you already went back in time. So that's how you're so oddly informed. Though as amusing as all of this is, surely you know that even with just absorbing Juunana-gou, nobody can rival my strength now! Not even the Juuhachi-gou and Juunana-gou, who you were always so completely helpless against. What chance could you possibly have against me?"

Koji only grinned, thrusting his hands forward. "You really do possess my Father's genes."

"Huh?" Cell replied, eyes widening.

"Let's take this fight somewhere else!" Before Cell could react, Koji blasted him with an invisible wave of ki. The half-Perfect android was sent flying uncontrollably backwards through the air and out of the desolated city. In a burst of white fire, Koji took off after Cell.

Juuhachi-gou looked as if she was about to run after them, but stopped after a few steps. That fool! What did he think he was doing? He wasn't strong enough to defeat Cell. He just couldn't be. Although, when she thought about it, hadn't there been something different about him? Now that she reflected back on it, she could almost feel the newfound strength rolling off him in waves. And he wasn't even in his transformed state...Is this more than a bluff? Was he actually more powerful than before as he claims to be? Could he really beat Cell?

_*Even if he could beat Cell, don't get too excited about it,* _she reminded herself. _*Because as soon as he's done with Cell, you know he's going to come straight after you next. That has always been his goal to destroy you and Juunana-gou for all the murders. It was why he was apparently training so hard to get stronger. He's not here to rescue you; he despises you! He's only here to prevent Cell from getting stronger!*_

She then remembered what he had said to her a moment ago.

_"Do not talk to me like that!...Do not talk to me like you actually care!" _

_"Nothing has changed between us! I just refuse to let Cell continue to have his way. If he absorbs you, then it really is all over for this world. Once I have defeated Cell...it's your turn!" _

As that hard reality of her situation sunk in, Juuhachi-gou began to wonder if she should take this chance to leave now.

When an explosion could be heard in the distance, her decision was made. She wasn't going to miss a battle like this! Plus, the fact that she was endangered and having to run away really stung her pride. For years it always been her and Juunana-gou endangering people and making them run away in fear, and now that she roles of the game had been reversed, she really hated it. Also...she just couldn't leave her son alone. Even if he told her he planned to defeat her as soon as Cell was dealt with.

In spite of that worry, to Juuhachi-gou's utter surprise after she finally caught up to Koji and Cell, he was doing shockingly well against the powered-up android. She had found them battling in the middle of a wide, grassy plain. In fact, Cell couldn't even seem to land one blow on Koji, as he ducked and blocked each blow flung at him without very much effort at all. Then, when Koji finally went on the offense, he easily broke through the half-perfect android's defense and unleashed a bombardment of punches on Cell's abdomen and face. Koji topped it up with a spinning back kick to the face, sending Cell soaring backwards through the air

Juuhachi-gou gaped at it all in astonishment. _*Where did he get all this power from?*_

Cell found himself wondering the same thing as he gawped up at the glowing warrior.

"Dammit! How can this be happening!?" Cell wanted to know. "I am the ultimate Jinzouningen. There's no way I can lose to this boy! Especially with the battle power I possess now!"

Remembering that, Cell rocketed into the air at his foe again, aiming a punch. He missed as Koji vanished, then seconds later ate a punch instead when his resolute opponent reappeared. Cell went flying through the air yet again before Koji appeared behind him to kick him back in the other direction. In the following moment, Cell dropped to earth with a hard thud, and Koji touched down a short distance across from him. The self-proclaimed ultimate Jinzouningen was in bad shape. He was bleeding from the mouth, and bruises covered his face.

"Cell! I have to kill the likes of you in order to protect the peace on the earth!" Koji declared.

Cell glared resentfully at the young man, his teeth bared. Though privately, Cell was starting to become quite worried. It was becoming very painfully obvious who the winner was going to be if this kept up.

_*What am I going to do?* _he asked himself. _*I was created by Doctor Gero-sama's computer to be his ultimate Jinzouningen, but I'm completely outclassed by this boy. Well, there is the option of self-destructing, but that's definitely out of the question. Not after I'm so close to reaching my Perfect stage after having to wait for so long. If only I could get my hands on Juuhachi-gou! That punk wouldn't be so-*_

Cell abruptly halted mid-thought, when he spied beyond Koji and saw the object of his desire trying to conceal herself amongst some boulders. Realizing she had been spotted, Juuhachi-gou broke out in a gasp, her eyes widening.

"Huh?" Koji said, when a gruesomely victorious grin appeared on Cell's face, as he stared at something. Wondering what had caught his attention, Koji followed his gaze, and he gasped and gaped when he saw Juuhachi-gou as well. "Damn! What is she still doing here?"

Cell began to laugh. "Fool! You should've killed me when you had the opportunity! After I absorb Juuhachi-gou, I truly will become the ultimate android, I'll make you pay for everything!"

"I told you that wasn't going to happen, Cell!" Koji said dangerously.

"Get out of my way!" Cell roared, splaying his fingers in a gesture that was only-too familiar to Koji. "Take this! TAIY-huh!"

Koji was no longer standing in front of him.

Cell was a second too slow when he finally realized that the half-Saiyajin was now standing behind him. Grabbing a hold of him by his tail, Koji lifted him off the ground and spun around in place with Cell numerously, before he finally tossed the once cocky Artificial Human upward. The android screamed as he flipped higher and higher into the atmosphere insanely. It was long minute later until he was able to regain command of his body and stop. He glowered down at Koji with utter hatred now.

"You bastard!" he hissed. "Now you've forced me to use this! Forget absorbing Juuhachi-gou, I'll just destroy this entire planet and be done with you for good!" While in midair, Cell shifted his body to the side and cupped his hands together. "KA...ME..."

Koji merely lifted his hands towards him.

"HA...M-"

The rest of the words froze at Cell's mouth, when he abruptly saw a huge sphere of ki appear around Koji. A look of horror crossed his features.

"BURN IN HELL!" Koji roared, releasing his ki power upward in a massive wave. The attack hit, swallowing up the Artificial Human's final curse before he was blasted away into non-existence.

From down on the ground, Juuhachi-gou stared up at her son in complete amazement. She couldn't believe her son could generate that much power now. A bitter smile curled her lips as she realized she had herself to blame for that. Oh well, she supposed it was time now...

When it had really sunk into Koji's mind that had just defeated Cell, the courageous warrior allowed a smile on his face.

"Well, that takes care of Cell and, incidentally, Juunana-gou as well," Koji murmured. "Now for..."

Even before he heard footsteps approaching, Koji had intended to turn around as he now had one more thing to take care of. To destroy the final piece of this nightmare and bring peace back to this planet at last. But when he did hear them, he moved quicker, extending out his right hand as he did so. Juuhachi-gou immediately paused.

For a long moment, the two just stood there, staring each other down, dark blue clashing harshly against china-blue. This was the moment Koji had been waiting for ever since he was told that the Jinzouningen had killed his father and birth mother, only to find out that the latter and her brother were actually the heartless devils that were responsible for the deaths of his father, Gohan, the other Z-Warriors, and all those people...

"Well? Aren't you going to say something?" Koji demanded in his low, cold voice.

"What for?" Juuhachi-gou replied tonelessly. "There really is nothing left to say, is there?"

"You're quite right," Koji agreed stonily.

At that second, Juuhachi-gou dropped down to her knees before her son, looking uncharacteristically submissive. Koji looked down at her with a puzzled expression.

When Koji didn't do anything after a moment, the blonde cyborg's expression turned into annoyance. Juuhachi-gou shouted at him, "What are you waiting for? An open invitation? Kill me!"

Koji suddenly found himself being reminded of him dropping down in the very same position and urging Perfect Cell to kill him, when he had foolishly tried to take on the android with the flawed Super Saiyajin Grade Three transformation.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, glaring harshly at her.

"What does it look like, idiot?" his mother snapped. "I'm giving you a free shot. Go ahead, destroy me already! Isn't that what you've wanted for years now? To destroy me and my brother for killing all those people...your Father...Gohan...and those other warriors? Didn't you train just so you could avenge them?...And for me not being there for you? And destroying your childhood? Well, you have your chance now, so do it!"

Juuhachi-gou further shocked her son, when her mien turned to genuine sadness, as she turned her gaze towards the ground. Briefly, Juuhachi-gou looked stunned herself that she was actually crying, for the first time since Dr. Gero had fully turned her into a Jinzouningen.

"Please...just go ahead and end it. Both of us and what's left of this world would be better off for it. On top of that, I have lost the only person on this whole stupid planet that ever cared for me...even back when we were humans before Gero found us. To your father, I was just a quick lay. I know destroying me like this must seem unsatisfying to you after everything that I've done, but a kill is a kill, right?"

Koji gasped in even more shock and disbelief, when tears began to actually slip down both sides of her face. Was he really seeing things? Was she actually crying? Did she really just look actually sad just then? He suddenly remembered Bulma's last words to him before he left the house.

_"And don't do anything you may regret."_

When his brain started to grasp something incomprehensible, he quickly and sternly shook his head to get rid of it. No, this was all nothing more than just some ruse to get him off his guard. He wouldn't fall for it! Koji tried to hold onto that obstinate nature he had inherited from his father, which told him to strike where she stood. Hadn't that been his goal all this time? Koji's lips pulled back in a furious snarl as he momentarily reflected on all of the people that had died and suffered at the hands of Juuhachi-gou and her brother, all because of their rage over what Dr. Gero had turned them into. His hands balled into fists. He had to make her pay for her sins!

Juuhachi-gou inwardly braced herself when she saw Koji advance toward her. She waited for death.

Her vision, slightly blurred from her tears, widened when Koji suddenly drew down on his knees before her. Juuhachi-gou attempted to back away, but he grabbed her...and pulled her into a hug. Juuhachi-gou was shocked, unable to believe her son was really hugging her after everything she's done. Slowly and hesitantly, raised her arms and wrapped them around his waist, embracing her son back.

As tears started to slide down his own eyes, Koji murmured, "It's alright. It's okay… _Kaasan_."

* * *

**To Be Concluded in Epilogue**


	7. Epilogue

**Disclaimer: Surely there's no need to go through this by now.**

**Author's Note: I want to take this time to thank everyone who's read the story and added it to their Favorites list, and for all the feedback too. Thank you guys so much!**

**Epilogue**

* * *

Near the outskirts of West City, Koji sat against a large oak tree on the bottom of a hill. It was ten 'o clock in the morning on a Tuesday in March, the day was sunny though windy with barely a cloud in sight in the blue sky. It wouldn't be long now before spring officially came in- two weeks, actually, according to the man on the news channel. Koji didn't need someone to tell him that a new season was coming, though; with his Saiyajin nose, he could already smell the change in the air. Right now, he was doing nothing more than enjoying the scenery. Just only three years ago, it would have been impossible for him do something like this. But those dark days were over with as peace had been fully restored to this era at last, and he owed all his success to all those brave warriors he met back in the Past...Young Gohan, Piccolo, Kuririn, Tienshinhan Yamucha, his father, Vegeta, but the one he felt indebted to most of all was Son Goku. Getting to know that great man had shaped his life in many ways, and he would never forget him. None of them.

After defeating Cell, Koji had immediately paid a visit to late Doctor Gero's laboratory to destroy it completely, so that way this world's Cell wouldn't show up trying to start problems. With the destruction of all of the Jinzouningen, the season wasn't the only thing that was starting to change. Word of the defeat of the Artificial Humans had spread like wildfire, and survivors came from their hiding places roaring celebration. Koji had been hailed as hero all over the world. But as soon as the celebrations were over, the remaining people of Earth immediately went to work on rebuilding what they had all lost over the years during the Cyborgs' rampage. While it would still take some time, the world was gradually beginning to look as it was before the artificial humans had ever appeared.

"A zenni for your thoughts?"

Automatically, Koji rose to his feet, grabbing the new sword his adopted mother had made for him as he did so. He was just about to pull his sword from its scabbard, but stopped mid-move when he saw who it was.

Juuhachi-gou raised a brow at him.

"Oh. Juuhachi-gou-san, it's just you," Koji said, feeling a bit awkward. "I thought-

A faint smile touched her lips. "Don't worry about it, I understand."

Koji pushed his sword back down in the sheath. It had been hard, and not to mention very awkward, for him and his birth mother to repair their relationship. After everything that happened, how could it not be? But Koji now realized she and her brother both had been victims of Gero's evil just as much as he and everyone else had. Dr. Gero had turned them into cold-blooded killers against their wills, all for the sake of getting revenge on Son Goku, causing his mother and uncle to develop a hatred against that which they could no longer be.

These days, it was pretty easy to separate Juuhachi-gou from the monster she used to be. After their reconciliation, Juuhachi-gou had threw away her old RR attire and these days replaced them for more regular attires, and she also smiled more. Her eyes were slowly losing their inhuman coldness, replaced by a warm glow. While he had accepted her now, she had surprisingly told him not to call her that since she had never been one to him while Bulma had. He was still amazed at how easy his adopted mother had accepted it when he had told her about his decision to spare Juuhachi-gou and forgive her.

He still recalled her response after he told her: _*Son, just about everyone I met through Goku-kun were jerks who had done bad things- some more worse than others. But in spite of that, I fell in love with one of them and the rest became good friends of mine. I even had a soft spot for Piccolo and that father of yours.*_

Although the two of them had forgiven Juuhachi-gou now and knew she had changed for the better, they knew the public were far from ready to do the same. With things still fresh in everyone's mind, they thought it would be best to keep her a secret until a true solution for the matter arose. Speaking of which-

"So, what you doing out here all by yourself?" Juuhachi-gou asked.

"Nothing. Just thinking," Koji replied. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"I came to tell you that Bulma is finally finished with the ship. We're all set to go."

Koji's face brightened in excitement. "Really? So we can go to Nameksei now and wish the others back to life?"

Briefly, Juuhachi-gou looked vaguely amused by his elated expression. Then her eyebrows creased together as something crossed her mind.

"Your father and the others won't be happy to see me," she said. "Not that I blame them."

Koji looked at her sympathetically. It was true. While Juuhachi-gou had repented for her sins, she was still most likely not going to get a warm reception from the Z-Warriors. Certainly not from the ones she actually did kill.

He surprised himself and her when he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"For now, don't worry," he told her, smiling. "But when that time does come, we'll deal with it...together."

Juuhachi-gou smiled back at him and nodded.

A light breeze passed over them as they turned and walked off together towards home, talking and laughing together like a real mother and son should.

* * *

**OWARI**


End file.
